


Moving on

by dominowithpaws



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dominowithpaws/pseuds/dominowithpaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene from Faith</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to Potboy for the beta work and for all the great advice!

It was long after midnight when Rush finally decided he needed to get back to his quarters if he didn't want to find himself draped over the console he was currently working at. That would not be very productive. He contemplated swinging by the infirmary to get another dose of painkillers, but he suspected Lt. Johanssen would try to keep him there, and the last thing he wanted was to spend another night there for everyone who happened to come by to gawk at him.

He took the first few steps easily enough, but then he almost lost his footing as a sudden dizziness overtook him. He managed to stabilize himself at the nearest wall, which happened to be a person. This person was now holding him up with a firm grip on Rush's arm, which was a good thing as it seemed his fisted hand in the person's uniform wasn't really doing the job, but was rather making both of them lean dangerously sideways.

When it looked like the floor had stopped moving beneath him, Rush opened his eyes to the last name he wanted to see embroidered on a uniform. He snapped his hand away from the person instantly.

"Colonel. What a pleasant surprise." He was glad to hear his voice hadn't lost its ability to convey irony. "You can let me go now."

Young looked at him dubiously but let his grip loosen around his arm, and when it seemed like he was not going to fall he let him go completely.

"Do you need help?" the Colonel asked quietly.

"No. Goodnight."

Rush turned out of the CI room into the corridor as quickly as he dared, but apparently not quick enough, as Young was beside him the next second, trailing after him like a lost dog. Or rather like a prison guard.

"Rush. Come on, don't be so stubborn."

"Leave me alone, Colonel. I told you, I don't need your help."

"No, you don't _want_ my help. But we both know you won't make it alone."

Oh, he was enjoying this, the bloody bastard. Rush was going to make it if that was the last thing he did, he would not give Young the satisfaction of seeing him collapse. Not now. Not _ever_.

"I think I can get to my quarters on my own, thank you." he sneered with just a little hint of disdain. 

"Right. And of course TJ is OK with you being all alone after your surgery." 

"Naturally." 

"You realise that she reports everything to me, right?" 

Oh, this was not going well. Time to attack. He started to slow down a bit in order to accumulate enough power for a getaway stride, for when the opportunity presented itself, and delivered what he hoped was a scathing line. 

"I have no interest in your ineffectual command processes," he uttered with the most condescending tone he could manage at the moment.

"Rush. This is not a game. She let you out on the condition of you going back to the infirmary to sleep in the evening. It's after midnight."

Oh hell. Why didn't Young bite? He usually would, after a comment like that.

"I was busy. I had work to do." 

"And now you look like death warmed over." Young shot back emphatically.

"Flattery will get you nowhere." Rush replied without missing a beat.

"Rush." growled Young. 

He had just about enough of this. "What?!" 

"You cannot be alone for the next 48 hours."

Fuck, so Young knew about that. Time to escape.

"Why do you care?"

Several quick blinks was the response. 

"I see. Goodnight, Colonel." 

Rush turned to stride away, but unfortunately after a couple of steps he lost his momentum and had to surreptitiously take a closer route to the walls, just to be on the safe side. He suspected he only managed to get this far away from Young due to sheer willpower and desperation anyway, and he could already feel his legs fighting to support him. This would not end well. He could hear the other man trailing after him. 

"Stop following me." He articulated clearly, on the off chance that Young didn't hear him the first five hundred times he told him to get lost.

"I just happen to be walking in the same direction as you." Young sounded faintly amused, which he didn't appreciate at all.

"Oh? You paying a late night visit to someone?"

"Yeah. You." Definitely amused now.

"Bugger off."

"It's your choice, Rush. You go back to the infirmary, or I'll stay with you."

What the hell?! Rush stopped abruptly to stare at Young perplexed. "You can't be serious." he finally stuttered with an incredulous tone. 

"I am." Young looked determined.

"Why? Nothing's gonna happen to me while I'm sleeping."

"You sure? So you are a doctor then?" 

"Funnily enough, I am." 

"Not that kind of doctor." Young shot back, not hiding his exasperation too well. 

Rush turned to continue limping towards his quarters, as clearly his only chance at finishing this pointless conversation was by reaching his sanctuary. Did Young really think he could convince him to go back to the bloody infirmary by threatening to stay with him? It was a bluff. Young wanted to stay with him about as much as Rush wanted him to. 

"So what, you're going to stand guard at my bed?" He asked with a condescending tone. 

"Yeah, well, sitting actually. I'm behind on my reports anyway, it's the perfect opportunity to catch up on them." Young tried to keep his voice calm and persuading. 

How could he think he would fall for such a cheap trick? He wasn't even trying to be subtle, for Christ's sake!

Fine, Rush decided to play along, he was certain he could beat Young at his own game.

"And what makes you think I will have any chance of sleeping with _you_ in my room?"

It was a long shot, counting on the guilt Young might be feeling for his part in Rush's current condition. He must feel guilty if he claimed he had regretted leaving him there on the planet, right? That was the only logical explanation, as he refused to believe Young was concerned about his health. 

It seemed like it was working, as Young looked down at his shoes, his mouth tightening, his eyes trying not to show the effect of that comment. 

"Ah. You didn't think, as usual. How unsurprising." Sometimes he wondered how the hell Young managed to get this far up in the military chain. Surely some minimal people skills were required. 

"Rush. You're exhausted. You will be asleep by the time I'm back with my laptop. Look at you, you can't even walk without leaning on the walls." 

"And whose fault is _that_?" 

Young used the same calm tone with a hint of self-recrimination, but at Rush's quip he tensed up again, looking startled, a mix of shame and determination showing on his face. 

"That's right. Yours."

"We could argue about whose actions started the chain of events that led us to this, but I'm not going to go there." Young said with a firm voice. "Also, I thought we've agreed to put this behind us."

"And I thought you were more of a realist than this."

"Rush."

"Stop saying my bloody name! Nothing's gonna happen to me while I'm sleeping, apart from my damaged cells recuperating. Or do you think I'm planning to take over the ship all by my lonesome?" 

Young looked taken aback for a moment, but left his gaze on Rush's face, looking at him calmly. 

"What?! Stop bloody staring at me!"

"You couldn't have seriously thought that you could take over the ship with the civilians. Half of the crew _is_ military." 

"So? That only means that half of the crew is made up by idiots. What's your point?" 

Young rolled his eyes, then looked at him calmly. "I was not going to throw you out of the ship." 

"Of course you weren't. That would have been the _logical_ thing to do." He snapped. 

"No, that would have been the easy thing to do." Young replied pointedly.

Rush couldn't deal with this now. He had to get out of here.

"Rush." 

He kept on walking.

"What happened on that planet was a mistake. We both know that." 

"Do we?" 

"I didn't think, I just... acted."

"Acting without thinking. Isn't that a must for every commander in the military?" 

"I stand by what I said earlier. You deserved those punches for all that you've done, especially because you didn't think it was wrong, even after everything that happened, but I went too far. And I shouldn't have left you there." 

Well. Interesting. Apparently Young really did feel some remorse about his actions on the planet. Good to know, Rush might be able to turn this to his advantage later. 

"It's not going to happen again." Young said quietly. 

It was amazing how time could change one's perspective. "You really are that naive, are you?" he sneered at Young. "You think I'm gonna suddenly tell you everything I do on Destiny? That I'm gonna be your best buddy because you, what, regret that you left me there? Because you feel _sorry_ for me?" 

He realized too late that he run out of walls to support him, and if not for Young quickly grabbing him he would have definitely fallen. As it was, he managed to stabilize himself somewhat, then tear his arm out of the Colonel's grasp and stumble instead to the nearest wall. 

"Don't touch me!" 

"Oh for God's sake, you would rather fall than let me help you stand?" 

"Yes!" 

"Too bad!" 

"I am not going to change, Colonel. I will do things that benefit everyone, and if that means sacrificing someone for the sake of everyone else, then I'm gonna do it!" 

That's it, he'd done it now. Admitted that if he had to choose, again, he would do what Young was not able to do, but what should be his responsibility in the first place: sacrifice whoever was in danger for everyone else's safety. Do the rational thing every sane person would do. If that made him a bad person, then so be it. He could live with that. Maybe there was a time when he couldn't have, but that time ended a long while ago now. 

What do they know anyway? If it was their lives at stake, if they were in his position, wouldn't they act too? He doubted many of them would just sit back and wait for death to claim them. If they had an opportunity to come up with a solution that could save the most of them, and to act on it, he bet they would choose what saved their own asses too, consequences be damned. 

Young kept gazing at him calmly. Far too calmly, considering what he had just said. 

"It's not only your decision to make." 

"Why, are you suddenly capable of critical thinking?" he sneered condescendingly. 

"I'm not going get into this argument with you while you are barely standing. We can talk about it tomorrow." 

"Right, talk. Since when do we _talk_?"

"And whose fault is _that_?"

Whose... right. "Touché." he conceded. 

"Look. Just... let me stay with you tonight." Young tried again, looking at him imploringly. Why the hell did he insist on doing this? 

"Why? Is this some kind of penance?"

"No." 

Rush shot him an annoyed look. 

"Well, in a small way maybe it is." Young admitted. The man had slightly unrealistic expectations, it seemed like. 

"Look, I realise that you don't trust me -" 

Rush couldn't contain the snort that statement produced, 

"- and you have every reason not to. But the feeling is mutual, I have no reason to trust you either. But in spite of that we've got to find a way to work together, no matter how much you might hate the idea. You are not an idiot, you must have realised that Camille wouldn't be able to uphold any kind of working order in the ship. Not for the long term. Especially not after what you've just pulled. So I'm the best you've got."

Well, he did have a point there. Not that Rush was going to admit that.

"And you're the best I've got who has any chance of figuring out how this tin can works." 

Look at that, it seemed like he really meant the not leaving him behind thing. Good to know. 

"Rush. Just... try to work with me on this. We need each other to make this work. You know that." 

They finally reached his quarters, and he pressed the control panel as soon as he could reach it safely, without falling. Young was looking at him steadily. 

"I thought you were going to get your laptop." 

Blank stare, slightly opening, then quickly closing lips was the response. Well, if nothing else, he had to admit he really did enjoy surprising Young. Whatever the Colonel hoped he would achieve with this conversation, it certainly couldn't have been a night spent in Rush's quarters. It filled him with great satisfaction, knowing he managed to best Young yet again, it was nice to know he still had it in him. Point to Rush.

"Yeah. Right."

"Well?" Oh, he was starting to enjoy the baffled stare a little too much. 

"So you're okay with me staying here tonight?" 

"Like I could stop you from doing whatever the hell you wanted." 

"Rush." 

"Just go already." 

"Fine. Don't go anywhere." 

He didn't even try to stop the snort this time. "As you've just pointed out two minutes ago, I can barely stand on my feet. How far do you think I will be able to get to before you're back?" 

"Rush, you might think I'm naive, but I'm not that naive. You are the most stubborn bastard I know. If you really wanted to, you could hide in some part of the ship only you know about and I probably wouldn't find you until morning. With the help of everyone else." 

Hmmm. Maybe he wasn't a lost cause then. He arched and eyebrow at the Colonel curiously. "And what makes you so sure I won't go and play hide and seek?" 

"Nothing. I just thought since I asked you to try to trust me, I should probably extend the same courtesy." he answered, looking at Rush pointedly. 

So he was back to being a naive idiot again. Still, he couldn't help feeling that Young could do his job if he actually tried acting like the commander of the crew that he was. It looked like only time would tell if they would have enough opportunity to find out before something destroyed them out here, so far away from anything even remotely familiar. 

"Right. So, I'll be back in 5 minutes. Try not to have a seizure or something until then." 

"As long as I can have one after." he couldn't help adding. 

"Rush." growled Young. 

"Just go." As Young turned to stride away, he heard a distinct mumble that sounded suspiciously like "a lot of work". 

Rush let his entire weight be supported by the wall for a second. Once he gathered enough strength, he slowly made his unbalanced way into his quarters and went for the Kino control at his bedside. He pressed a couple of buttons on it, and then waited for the Kino to get into position. Once he was satisfied it wasn't showing anything he didn't want to, he took off his vest and green T-shirt and put it on the corner of his bed. After checking the Kino control one more time, he made his way to the door of his quarters and put it outside on the floor. 

He turned and closed the door, hopefully making Young understand he didn't want his, or anyone else's company for that matter. It was risky, but he doubted Young would breach his trust and come into his quarters against Rush's wishes. Their relationship was precarious enough as it was, they didn't need another disagreement added to it.

He knew Young was mostly right about the two of them, they had to make this work somehow. He just needed that somehow to start a wee bit later. 

After making his slow and painful way back to his bed, he took off his jeans and crawled under the covers. Where would Young have stayed anyway? The floor was too cold to let anyone sit on it for an extended amount of time, and he would rather die than let Young anywhere near his bed.

Why was he even thinking about this? Him staying over was obviously just a ruse to get Rush back to the infirmary, back under surveillance. He wasn't actually going to do it. 

Leaving the Kino control for Young, letting him keep an eye on him, or rather on his discarded clothes, was already stretching beyond his comfort zone. But still, he could live with this if it kept the Colonel off his back. This way both of them got what they wanted. His bed was certainly more comfortable than the one in the infirmary, and he needed some space to recuperate in peace, and Young constantly breathing down on his neck was not going to help his health. Nor his mental equilibrium for that matter.

 

*** 

Young should probably have been more surprised at finding the door to Rush's quarters closed, and a Kino control in front of it when he returned with his laptop. In truth, he was actually quite glad for this, as he wasn't sure how he could have spent an entire night closed in with the man. 

The Kino was the best solution really. He knew Eli managed to modify one of them to monitor not only life-signs, but healthy, human life-signs, and alert whoever was holding the Kino control if the observed person was in danger. They'd already used it several times after that alien viral organism from the ice planet infected half the ship. Some patients with milder symptoms, for whom TJ didn't have a place in the infirmary, were given a modified Kino to keep with them during the night. Rush was one of those patients that time, and it seemed like he was making good use of it now as well. 

So it was progress, Young supposed. Rush had given him the Kino control, trusting him to alert TJ if something was wrong. Well, TJ probably already had one, she must have known it was unlikely that Rush would want to sleep in the infirmary if he could avoid it, but still, this was definitely progress. He could just about make out the end of Rush's bed, with his jeans and his vest laying haphazardly on it. The view didn't change, and the controls were locked - Rush probably set it like that. This was actually more than he expected, and the Kino kept monitoring Rush's breathing, so he really didn't have any reason to stand around stupidly outside of Rush's quarters like a lost puppy. 

In retrospect, what the hell was he thinking? Offering to stay with the guy, to watch over him? Rush wouldn't trust anyone on board with his safety, let alone him. He just looked so... lost standing there on the corridor, barely staying on his feet, visibly trembling with the effort, that Young just wanted to do something nice for the man for a change. He was responsible for him, and he was responsible for Rush being in this condition in the first place. He tried telling himself that the other man brought this on himself, and he knew that technically his reasoning was sound, but it still didn't ease the guilt he felt about it. Thinking back, he knew he could have done something different to prevent the final outcome of the confrontation, but it was easy knowing the right solution afterwards. Or at least knowing what was the wrong solution. 

The only thing he could do now was to deal with the outcome, he had to repair this - he just wasn't sure how to go about it. Once he offered to stay with Rush, he couldn't take it back. Truth be told, he hoped that if the alternative was having Young stay with him, it would make Rush go back to the infirmary, but the other man had probably seen through him at once. Not that he thought Rush would have complained if he decided to back off and leave him alone, especially in light of the Kino, but backing off would just make Rush think he didn't really mean what he said about them trying to work together, and if he couldn't even be straight about such a small thing as being concerned about Rush's health, then they were doomed, basically. 

The truth was, they needed him. It became even clearer when the aliens attacked, that without Rush, their chance at survival was pretty slim. Even _with_ him they were around 50 percent most of the time, so Young really didn't have the luxury of not using him as their best resource.

So. Cooperating with the guy was the best option. The only option really. Which was going to be quite problematic, since apparently they couldn't work together, couldn't even spend 5 minutes in the same room with each other without arguing about something. He knew Rush was not wrong about him, not completely wrong anyway, and that made it even harder. He just seemed to know instinctively what to say to rile him up. It was like pointing out all of Young's shortcomings was his favourite pastime, which in itself wouldn't be that bad, as he was used to being criticized pretty much everywhere lately, but if Rush succeeded in convincing the rest of the crew that he should be replaced, then there was no telling how unscrupulously he would manipulate the poor soul who would get to be in control. Actually, there was, they'd already seen the result of _that_ scenario. 

OK, fine, Rush wasn't your typical megalomaniac crazy person, but still, it seemed like all he wanted to do was what he thought was the best for _his_ purposes, everyone else be damned. And really, that was the root of the problem. He didn't care who else would get hurt, or die in the process as long as it served his purpose, which was apparently the only legitimate purpose on the ship anyone could possibly have. 

But since they were not going back to Earth anytime soon, according to Eli as well, they had to make do here to the best of their ability, and Young knew the success of cooperation largely depended on him. And he was standing on shaky legs, for good reasons, he knew that, mostly due to his own doing. He wasn't on the top of his game, he was aware of that too. He screwed up more times than he could count since he got to be the head of the Icarus project than during the entire time of his career. 

Between Emily and TJ, the LA and his injuries, he lost some part of himself that he was desperately trying to get back. Adding Telford and Rush to the mix didn't help matters either. At least he could get away from David, but Rush was here on Destiny, and they needed him, and he might be a little uncontrollable and a lot of work, but it was Young's job to find a way to cooperate with him, or at least to manage him. 

He pressed the door opening panel and walked into his quarters, still contemplating how best to address the key problem of Destiny's crew coexisting peacefully and productively. It felt like the main axis of the whole balance was Rush and him, and maybe Camille. 

He'd made the first step, Rush seemed to be responding relatively well, considering. He would just have to keep making an effort with him, and showing him that they could be more productive together than against each other. Maybe Rush would even believe it if Young didn't screw up something in the next three hundred crises they would no doubt face out here.

With that thought, he placed the Kino control on his bedside table, turned off the lights and lay down on the bed, contemplating how to go about making this work with Rush.


	2. An Overdue Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Young and Rush might be making some much needed progress

 

As Young stepped into the CI room in the early afternoon hours, the usual view awaited him. Rush was, unsurprisingly, working at his console again, while Brody was sitting at another station. The silence was companionable with the both of them clicking contentedly away, immersed in work. Of course as Young came into view the tension noticeably mounted to uncomfortable levels. 

"Gentlemen," he said with forced cheerfulness in his voice.

Rush spared him a quick glance, then turned back to his screen. 

"Good morning" replied Brody, with a deer caught in the headlights kind of expression. "Colonel. I mean, Colonel Young. I mean, good afternoon, Colonel Young. How are you doing?" 

Since when did Brody stutter? "Mr. Brody. I'm fine, thank you." Young replied suspiciously. 

"Good. That's... good." Brody trailed away, then looked around in the room uncertainly. 

Oh great, they were afraid of Young now? Just what he needed. "What are you working on?" Young stepped closer to Brody. He didn't think Rush would volunteer to answer anyway. 

"Err... I'm looking for information about propulsion mechanics. For the shuttle. To repair it." 

"Right. How's that going, by the way? Still only turning left?" he inquired nonchalantly. 

"Well, yes. It's a slow process. Without understanding the higher mechanics of it, it's hard to find where the problem is, and the shuttle..." 

"He wasn't reprimanding you, for Christ sake, don't be such a pushover!" interrupted Rush, clearly annoyed. 

"Rush." Young growled at the scientist. 

"I was just answering his question!" Brody protested indignantly. 

"Like he understands what you're talking about. He's only here to check up on me anyway, but apparently he's too bloody circumspect to get right down to it."

Young closed his eyes and counted to ten, very slowly. When he opened them, Brody was already packing up his computer, and mumbling something about checking Park, he left the room like it was on fire. Well, it was about to be. 

"I see you had a restful night then," Young said pointedly to Rush. 

"It was tolerable," replied the other man sullenly. 

Young slowly walked up to him, hands clenching in his trousers pockets, stopping only when he was right next to Rush's console. He looked at the other man calmly, trying to project as much patience as he could. Rush was apparently not impressed, he looked back at Young haughtily, obviously impatient to get back to whatever he was doing. 

Young really didn't want to undo yesterday's progress, but maybe with Rush, the key was pretending it didn't happen and just moving on. Yeah, the only problem with that was that they were seriously overdue a discussion. 

Should he just leave it? If he didn't have this out in the open with the other man soon, there was a possibility that it would grow into that 'elephant in the room' thing. They already had way too many issues, they really didn't need to add another one to the pile. 

So, confrontation it was. 

"Come with me," he told Rush in a quiet, firm voice. 

"I beg your pardon?" 

"I want to show you something." 

"I'm sure it can wait until I'm done with..." came the anticipated protest from the scientist. 

"Come on," Young insisted. "It won't take long," he added, then turned around and walked out of the Control Interface room.

  

*** 

The room Young took him to was rather small, but one of its walls was a floor to ceiling window to the outside. It was unusually bright, compared to Destiny's otherwise gloomy corridors and rooms, especially with the alien star shining in the corner of the view. The room was like a small version of the observation deck, the only furniture being the two couches pushed up to the back wall. Young walked to the window, his hands still in his trouser pockets, looking for all the world like a man without any troubles.

"Why did you bring me here?" Rush asked finally, when the silence was becoming too oppressive. 

"This seemed like a more neutral place to have our talk." 

Right, their talk. Rush supposed a little more time to recuperate in peace would have been too much to ask. The man was a bloody dictator. 

"Alright, let's get this over with, shall we?" Rush sat down on one of the couches, put his elbows on his knees and looked up at Young with a sour face, specifically designed to annoy the other man as much as possible. He was definitely not going to make this easier for the Colonel. 

Young turned back to him, but only a raised eyebrow was the response. Bloody hell, he was slipping. 

"You're not the first scientist I had to work with. There was a guy in my old gate team, Dr. Ryan Carwell, a theoretical physicist and astrophysicist." started Young without preamble. "He was a pretty handy guy too, he was working towards his engineering degree. Very smart, but no people skills whatsoever. And no sense of personal safety either. Hell, there was this one time when the room we were in actually started to burn, blue fire spread along the walls - a cleverly designed defense mechanism -, and he didn't even notice, just kept on pressing buttons on his console. I had to literally carry him out of there while he was screaming at me to put him down." 

Young was smiling slightly, apparently reminiscing. "He was so angry with me. We barely managed to get out of there before the structure collapsed on us. When he finally realised what was happening, you know what he said?" Young turned halfway towards the window, slightly leaning on it with a shoulder. "That I could have told him there was a fire," he said, chuckling at the memory. 

So, apparently it was short story time, about some other scientist Young worked with over the years. Great, just what Rush needed. Hopefully this would be worth having to listen to the Colonel talking incessantly. At least he was not trying to interrogate Rush about _his_ past, thank God for small miracles. Rush supposed he could sit here a bit longer. He might even learn something useful about the other man. 

"His heart was in the right place, he just tended to get a little too absorbed in work," continued Young. "He made smartass comments about the military being too controlling with all its impossible rules, and..." 

"Imagine that," Rush added snidely. Young didn't bother to respond. 

"... and we made fun of his mismatched clothes. It was symbiotic, we had a camaraderie. He was part of the team, you know? And that was how it should be with gate teams, and maybe it would have been like that with you as well, in those circumstances. And maybe he would have been like you are, here on Destiny. I don't know." 

Young stopped again, then after a few seconds turned towards Rush. "What I'm trying to say is that... I think I kept expecting that my relationship with you would turn in that direction at some point, and we would have something like I had with Carwell. Only I didn't really do anything for that to happen. There was no point on Icarus as Telford was supposed to come here, not me, and after _that_ didn't happen, I was... I wasn't exactly in top form. And you weren't too receptive either." 

"Why are you telling me this?" Rush asked, already suspecting where Young was going with this. 

"Because when it comes to working with scientists, Carwell set a... kind of a standard for me. You know? Even when he was a pain in the ass sometimes, and hardly manageable, we became a great team, eventually. Well, once I learned what not to do to piss him off, and to leave him alone when he was working, and not in danger. We managed to find a way to work together. He saved our asses numerous times, and I saved his miserable life probably just as many times. It just all clicked together. We were a team, a well-oiled machine. We trusted each other with our lives." 

Young slipped into silence again, reminiscing, but somehow Rush felt a dark undertone creeping into his voice. 

"And then there was this one time when I was too late." 

Young looked at him again, as if checking whether he still had Rush's attention. Rush suspected he was about to hear the story anyway, but for once he decided he could attempt to be civil. Young probably had a point to make with this - Rush doubted the Colonel would offer to share something so personal with him otherwise -, and if it would help them becoming more productive, he could make an effort too. 

"What happened?" he asked at last. 

"We got intel about a good candidate for an Icarus-type planet. We were sent to check it out in a Tel'tak, to do recon. We were in orbit around the planet, doing all kinds of readings, and the numbers were looking good too. That was the first viable candidate in months, since the project started. Carwell said it was a 98 percent probability that this would be it, but he had to do some more calculations back at the base." Young trailed off, as if to decide whether to stop talking or continue with the story. "Then when we got to the meeting point, we were ambushed." 

"Meeting point?" 

"Yeah. Where the General Hammond was supposed to pick us up. The location was leaked to the Lucian Alliance, they were waiting for us there. By the time the Hammond arrived we had been captured - they came at us with a fucking fleet, we didn't stand a chance." 

Young glanced at him again, a little provocatively, maybe to see if Rush had any scathing comments to add. Rush just nodded at him to go on. 

"We couldn't jump either, the hyperdrive would have blown out, and we were close to the edge of the galaxy anyway. If we jumped, and the engines stopped working, we would have been drifting in the middle of nowhere, without anyone knowing our location. Our only hope was to try to hold on until the Hammond arrived. 

But Carwell - he was brilliant. He came up with some sort of radio-wave that confused the hell out of the Lucian Alliance's navigation systems. Several of their ships simply crashed into each other, some of them even started to shoot at each other." 

"But it wasn't enough." 

"No. They shot our engines down, then boarded us. We were taken to their leader, Masim, and interrogated, separately. And the bastards started with Carwell, even after we volunteered. They knew he was not trained for it." Young said, clearly frustrated. 

"No one is trained for torture," Rush added quietly. 

Young glanced at him, pained, like he was trying not to relive those memories. "They were at him for a long time. When they brought him back he was unconscious. They took me next - but we already had a plan. I would give them some seemingly important information after resisting at first, and when they take me back to the cell, I distract my guard, and the guys get the rest of them." He swallowed, then continued. 

"So we did that. But unfortunately it seemed like the LA wanted something a little more specific from me. They were aware that I was friends with Jackson, well, sort of, I helped him get a new apartment when Mitchell couldn't go with him due to a plasma burn, and Jackson couldn't go alone because he'd just descended or whatever the hell it's called... anyway. They wanted the location of Jackson's house. And I had no idea how they knew I had that information. 

Well, I had no idea then, but I knew I couldn't tell them. Not Jackson's." Young stopped talking, and kept staring at the wall opposite him, unseeing. 

Rush was getting more and more uncomfortable with this whole thing, but he had to admit, the story was intriguing. "And now, do you know who told them about it?" 

Young came out of his trance "Huh? About what? 

"That you were friends with Jackson. That you knew where he lived," Rush clarified. 

"Oh. Yeah, I know." 

"And?" 

Young looked at him sharply, then turned away towards the window. "They only wanted to know his address, nothing else. I didn't tell them, but I was not in a good shape when they took me back to the cell either. 

That didn't matter. The guys were ready, I only had to do my part. I distracted one of the guards, and we managed to overpower them and break out." Young ignored Rush's question for the moment. 

"The guys had got some life back into Carwell by then, but he wasn't in a good shape either. He kept saying he was sorry, and that he tried to be strong, and he didn't tell them the planet's location. But he told them something else instead. He said he had to tell them something because he just couldn't bear what they did to him anymore." 

Oh. Well, shit. Rush was sitting there, unmoving, trying to make sure he understood what Young implied. Young closed his eyes briefly, then shook his head as if to clear it, and continued to tell him what happened next. 

"We needed to get to the bay - we were in a Goa'uld mothership, a Ha'tak, so at least we knew where to go. But with both Carwell and me half out of commission, it was not an easy task. By the time we made it to the control room of the bay, they were onto us." Young stopped to take a deep breath. His tone became more and more monotone as he continued the story. 

"Fortunately it seemed like the LA was operating with the absolute minimum crew because the first wave that came for us consisted of only 4 soldiers. We managed to overpower them, but Carwell got hit on his leg. It wasn't too serious, but he was already hurt to begin with. And his reflexes were slowed down. As were mine. I saw one of them aiming the gun at him, but I was too late. I got to the bastard's neck just a second after he pulled the trigger." 

Young stopped talking again, and Rush could see his hands clenching in his pockets, almost like they were spasming periodically. 

"We had to get out of there, quickly. Unfortunately they locked us out of the controls, so we were sitting ducks. Carwell needed more time to get us into the system, time we didn't have. He had lost a lot of blood by then. I stayed with him and sent the others to one of the shuttles, so at least they could get away when Carwell solved the problem. I practically had to hold the guy up to the console. He was barely keeping it together, yet, he kept manipulating the controls like a man possessed." Young's voice was barely audible. "He was smarter than them. He unlocked it." 

"So all of you escaped?" 

"Another two LA members sneaked up on us just when we were about to board the shuttle, Carwell half draped over me. I got one of them between the eyes, but the other... the other had a clear shot at us." Young was almost whispering at that point. "He shot Carwell." 

Oh, fuck. That explained so many things. 

"I reacted too late. I... I tried to cover him, but we were both way too slow by then. I managed to shoot the bastard right after he fired, but I was too late. Again. We stumbled into the shuttle together, the guys were waiting for us. We got away. Carwell died right there on the fucking floor of their ship, in my arms. And you know what he said at the end?" Young looked at Rush a little too intensely, and finally said in a repressed voice. "He said he was sorry. Like this whole thing was his fault." 

The silence reverberated around them. Rush was trying to take everything in, trying to analyze all this new information that he was given. He tried to stick with the facts, and the facts only. 

It was impossible.

 

***

Young still remembered Carwell's expression in those last agonizing minutes. He probably always would, until the rest of his life. There was guilt, and regret, and pain there. And forgiveness. Forgiveness he didn't deserve. 

"So, I'm supposed to be the Carwell of Destiny? Criticizing the military won't be a problem, I assure you, but I'm not sure about all this joking thing. Do you think it would send the right message to the rest of the crew?" 

Young looked at Rush incredulously. Could Rush really be so callous as to react to such a story with mockery? But Rush's expression was not taunting, it was kinder than that. Teasing, perhaps. Maybe this was Rush's way of showing compassion? Young knew almost nothing about the guy after all. And whose fault was that? 

Well, both of them, maybe. 

It was so much easier with Carwell. Okay, maybe not at first, but after a while, after they had cut through his thick turtle like shell, Young could read him like an open book. 

Will he ever get to this stage with Rush? Was it even possible after everything that happened between them? Rush was more like a hedgehog, every time he tried to get closer to him so far, he poked his bloody spines at him. Well, more like shot his spines at Young and used him as target practice. One hell of a hedgehog. 

Young smiled slightly at the mental image, and turned back towards the window, the alien star still visible in the corner of the horizon. 

"Carwell was more than a colleague. He was my friend. And I'm pretty sure that we were his only friends, actually." 

Every time Young thought about Carwell, the memories threatened to choke him. Every time. Until he beat up Rush and abandoned him on an alien planet. Ironically enough, that put things into perspective again. Young knew he would always blame himself for Carwell dying on the cold floor of an alien ship, just like he would always blame himself for what happened to Rush. He accepted that. His brain could tell him it wasn't really his fault all it liked, that there was nothing else he could have done to save Carwell, he was injured, and the both of them had been tortured within an inch of their lives. 

That Young did everything he possibly could. 

It still wouldn't change the way his throat closed up every time he thought about it.  

And Rush. Rush provoked him, he framed Young for murder, which in itself was bad enough, but then he went and manipulated another human being into the chair, to be his guinea pig, and effectively fried his brain. It was Young's job to protect his people, but he never should have had to protect them from a member of his own crew, for God's sake. He felt betrayed, he felt like he had failed, and he wanted to make up for all those feelings weighing him down. He had wanted to punish Rush for something that _Young_ failed to do. He could tell himself it was Rush's fault all he wanted, but it would never erase the memory of the dread Young had felt the moment he stepped through the gate, the moment the ship jumped back into FTL. The moment he was sure he had killed the man. The man he was supposed to protect. 

It was both of their faults, and he had to deal with his part of it. And possibly, make Rush deal with his own actions in the process. 

More to the point: he knew Rush would need proof in order to believe that Young was serious about them working this out. Telling him about Carwell was not easy, but he hoped the other man would be able to... if not appreciate, then at least acknowledge the gesture for what it was. 

"I failed him, not only as his commander, but as his friend too. But not in the same way that I failed you. I should have tried more with you, I shouldn't have let you manipulate me into thinking you knew we were not gonna die that first time we refueled in a star. Maybe that's what started this whole avalanche. And it might already be too late for trying to make this work, but we have no choice, Rush. We've got to try anyway." 

"Right. So you've told me all this just to get me to cooperate?" 

"Isn't that enough of a reason? Us cooperating is important, Rush." 

"Right. I'll just forget you attempting to murder me then, shall I?" 

Young froze. Even though he had heard these words from the scientist before, they still made the blood stop in his veins. But he had to stay calm. He couldn't let Rush instigate another fight between them. 

"Ok, stop. You admitted you provoked me, and I admitted I shouldn't have done what I did. But I didn't set out to murder you, I wanted to confront you. I had to do something. You were a liability, who randomly endangered members of the crew for his own selfish goals." 

"His own selfish goals?!" Rush chuckled disbelievingly. "Well, excuse me for thinking the priority was getting back to Earth. I seem to recall you saying that multiple times though, but surely I'm mistaken." 

"Oh please, don't pretend you're some kind of Good Samaritan whose sole purpose was to help us! You wanted access to the ship's systems, to control them, and while I admit that's important, it shouldn't take priority over anyone else's life!" 

"I didn't tell him to sit in the bloody thing!" came the vehement protesting from the scientist. 

"But it was still your doing, Rush! You made it happen, however indirectly. You're responsible for his condition, and you don't even seem to be bothered by it!" 

Young realized he was towering over Rush. He couldn't believe how quickly he had let it escalate to shouting levels again. He quickly turned away from the scientist and took a couple of deep breaths. 

This was just like with Carwell in the beginning. Rush was impossible, deliberately provoking, arrogant, and still the most essential part of their team.

 

***

Young looked at him like he did on that planet - like he was ready to put Rush in his place again if he didn't bend to his will. Rush smiled at the Colonel bitterly, with the smile of a man who has been judged and found guilty, not denying the accusation, but not confirming it either. 

Let Young think whatever he wanted. Rush would certainly not grovel before him and ask for his forgiveness. He didn't need it. He didn't need anyone's forgiveness. They knew nothing, the lot of them. 

The fact that Young told him something so personal, something that obviously still haunted the other man was... astonishing. He didn't know what to make of it. It seemed too personal a gesture, and his relationship with Young was not one that invited such confidences. He could only assume that Young had some sort of a long term purpose with all this 'sharing'. He would just have to figure out what. 

He glanced at the Colonel again. Young had apparently successfully talked himself out of beating Rush up again during Rush's musings. 

"Do we have to discuss this at all? Can't we just move on, start over, if you will?" offered Rush finally in a calmer tone. 

Young gave a disbelieving snort. "Pretend it didn't happen you mean? That worked out great the last time." 

"Well, I happened to have a bloody transmitter in my chest the last time, so excuse me if I was not entirely honest about that." 

Young took a deep breath, closed his eyes and let it out slowly. He was doing that a lot lately. 

"Ok, fine. We don't bring this up anymore, neither your part in it, nor mine. We move on. And we will cooperate. We will work together." 

"Fine." 

"And you will tell me everything you find out about Destiny." 

Rush looked back at him exasperatedly. "Oh please. If I told you everything, then about half of my day would only consist of talking to you about things I'm sure you wouldn't understand anyway. It wouldn't be very productive." 

"I think you'd be surprised how much I would understand." 

"I doubt that." 

"Actually, during the years Carwell rubbed off on me." 

"Too much information, Colonel." said Rush, smirking like the Devil. 

"That's not what I meant!" said Young horrified. 

"Right, next you'll be telling me you have a degree in physics as well, I suppose?" 

Young laughed at that, apparently relieved that the tension seemed to be dissipating from the room at last. "Well, I wouldn't go that far." 

"Ok, fine. I will tell you all the important information I find out." 

Young narrowed his eyes at Rush. "And I suppose you're going to tell me now that I should trust you about deciding what is the important information?" 

Rush felt inappropriately satisfied with himself. "Naturally." 

Young contemplated him. "Alright," he said finally. 

"Alright. Just don't expect me to joke with you. I am not like that other guy. Who apparently rubbed off of you," added Rush snidely.

"No, you're not. Unfortunately," said Young. "But maybe we could still work on that," he added, then walked out of the room, leaving Rush alone with his thoughts.

 


	3. An Attempt Is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which after a lengthy contemplation of breakfast and Young, an attempt is made

  
  
Rush was staring into his bowl of gruel in the mess hall, trying to calculate the minimum amount he needed to eat that would get him through the day.  
  
He hadn't got too much sleep last night, and it was, as usual, thanks to Colonel Young. Rush didn't know what to do about him. He kept contemplating what the other man had told him about them cooperating and trusting each other. Bah! It seemed like a load of humbug, exactly like a thing Rush expected him to say: 'I'm the boss, you do as I say, or else.' Only he hadn't exactly said that now, had he?  
  
The story about Young's old gate team, about Carwell, put things into a different perspective. Rush had never considered the possibility that he might be at fault, and not only Young, when it came to their disagreements. Now however, he was forced to take a fresh look at their situation, especially in light of the last couple of week's events. 

These were the facts: Young had worked on a gate team before being appointed to the Commander of Icarus base. Apparently, gate team dynamics were very different from being the head of a whole base - alright, that one was fairly obvious, but Rush had never really bothered to think about this before. Also, Young had an affectionate relationship with another scientist from said gate team, who died in tragic circumstances. These circumstances might have affected Young in more ways than it seemed at first glance. The most obvious was that Young apparently considered himself responsible for said scientist's death. 

So, what to make of all this information? 

Undoubtedly, the main point of the tale was to let Rush know that Young _was_ in fact _capable_ of working with scientists. Possibly even of listening to them, and trusting their judgment. He was just not capable of doing it with Rush. At least he had the decency not to make it out to be only Rush's fault.  
  
Rush considered their relationship from the beginning. From the first time they'd met, Young had been to him only a military guy with a gun, giving out orders to left and right, not giving a shit about the scientific discoveries he was hindering along the way. He was just an obstacle to progress, so Rush didn't even try to work with the guy. 

Also, as Young pointed out, Colonel Telford was supposed to come here, so it was really not Rush's fault that he knew next to nothing about Young besides his tendency to rebuff Rush's requests on Icarus, and to stalk around the base broodingly. He had been aware even then that Young came with some kind of story attached - a faint aura of regret and danger attended the man - but Rush had had no interest in discovering what it was. In all fairness, he didn't really care to know anyone's melodramas. He had grief enough of his own, and work to do.

Ever since Rush has been admitted to the Program, he had always viewed the military as an unnecessary hindrance to the aims of science. He had to admit that you couldn't exactly put scientists alone on a project like this. Since the Stargate Program was fundamentally about defending Earth from extraterrestrial attack in addition to gaining technological advancement by exploring the unknown universe, it inevitably followed that there were going to be guns involved at some point.  
  
So all in all, he understood why the military was involved at all. And out here, in the middle of nowhere, he was quite glad to have them. Purely as back up, of course. He just had a problem with the hierarchy that was enforced on him. He was not used to answering to anyone, let alone a buffoon of a man who didn't even want to be here in the first place. 

Unfortunately, Rush had to admit that in theory, Young was right. He couldn't do this alone. No matter how much he might have liked to, he couldn't ignore the fact that the ship was in depressingly bleak condition. That there were decidedly unfriendly aliens tracking them. That Rush needed Young on his side to be able to do this, to be able to uncover Destiny's many secrets, and maybe even the Universe's. However, the conflict still remained the same, no matter how chummy he might get with Young: that everyone on this ship wanted to go back to Earth. Every single one of them.  
  
Except for Rush.  
  
At the end of the day, he could play by their rules, he could even be a team player, but if it came down to choosing between staying on Destiny and going back to Earth, he would always choose Destiny. So really, there was no point getting friendly with anyone if he was just going to double cross them sooner or later, and if they were going to despise him for it. No point whatsoever. It would be just a waste of time and energy that he couldn't afford.  
  
Still, it didn't mean he couldn't cooperate. He could. He would certainly do everything in his power to get them out of the shit they repeatedly found themselves in. That's what he had been doing all along. God, Young was acting like a paranoid bastard, as if he was under the impression that Rush had been deliberately trying to off everyone. Please! Like Rush would purposefully send off the shuttle with 17 people and the majority of their supplies on board, while knowing there was no real danger to Destiny. It was just... Young made him so frustrated sometimes! A typical bloody military guy with power, who knew nothing, and who expected to be obeyed without question. Not bloody likely.  
  
So Rush let him think whatever he wanted. He certainly wasn't going to tell the Colonel what his problem had really been with that whole scene in the mess hall after the first solar recharge, and any other explanation would have just sounded pathetic. In hindsight, the spur of the moment decision to allow Young to believe he had been lying hadn't really turned out to be a particularly good one, but what else could he have done?  
  
Admittedly, it might be a little easier in the future if he didn't have to navigate behind Young's back all the time.

It was decided then. He would do as he told Young: he would tell the Colonel all the relevant information he found out about Destiny, and he would cooperate. Within reason, of course. He was certain that at the moment there was no way they could dial Earth without blowing up the ship anyway, so he didn't have to worry about that. Having nothing to hide would certainly be helpful when it came to being open with Young.  
  
Right. So that's what he was going to do, entirely because at the moment, that was the most practical and rational thing to do. To cooperate.  
  
So, back to work then. But first, eating the gruel. He'd better start it, he doubted that it would become more edible with time. He swallowed a couple of spoonfuls in quick succession, when a sudden wrong movement made pain flare up in his chest for a second. The ache passed fairly quickly, leaving behind an unpleasant tingling sensation. He touched the scar, gently feeling the area, gradually putting pressure on it to test its progress.  
  
Lt. Johanssen said that it was healing nicely, and that she would remove the stitches in a couple of days. He still couldn't completely shake the memory of the utter helplessness and fear he had felt at having this alien thing inside him and transmitting to the Nakai. Even though he couldn't actually feel the transmitter when it was still in him, the knowledge of having it there made him shudder. He had been fucking desperate. He had just wanted it _out_. But he hadn't been able to ask Lt. Johanssen to take it out, she was not a surgeon, for Christ's sake! Also, he hadn't been entirely certain Young wouldn't jump at the opportunity to get rid of him, permanently this time. So no, when it came down to it, he really hadn't had much choice. Camille's little mutiny came at the perfect time, and everything just fell together perfectly.  
  
In retrospect, maybe he should have considered different avenues. With a clear head, he might have been able to admit that he had been panicking, and overreacting as a result of that. Still, the possibility of having his fate in Young's hands, in the hands of the man who left him to die had been... it had been unacceptable.  
  
What was done was done, there was no point wondering about what ifs and possibilities - that would just be another example of a waste of time. The transmitter was destroyed, he was alive, and they survived the attack.  
  
Oh yes, the attack. That was another thing Rush couldn't comprehend: how the hell could Young believe that Rush's suggestion about using _only_ the shields was the wrong decision? Did the man think Rush would recommend something if he believed it would get them all killed? All of them, including Rush? It was like Young didn't care at all about their circumstances, he just wanted to do the exact opposite of what Rush was telling him to do. And the man wondered why Rush kept going behind his back.  
  
The most puzzling thing about this was that Young must have been a somewhat competent member of Stargate Command at some point in the past, if he had managed to climb so far up the ladder, and not get killed in the process. Maybe that was why the whole situation was so bloody complicated, because Rush hadn't actually witnessed Young's competence - apart from the occasional, scattered instance - but rather the opposite. Rush was never good at blind faith, and to believe something he hadn't experienced seemed inconceivable. 

They were stuck with each other for now though, so they had to make do as best as they could.  
  
However, thanks to that story about Carwell, something in Rush felt inclined to give Young the benefit of the doubt - he suspected that was the other, more subtle point of the story. After all, Young was right about one thing: they had to work this out between them. If the Colonel could get himself together to act like a competent leader, Rush was fine with it. Well, if Young would let him work in peace, that is. And listen to him, especially if everyone's life depended on it. Or just... listen to him. Period.  
  
Rush startled when someone plopped down on the bench opposite him.  
  
"Hey."  
  
Ah, Eli. The ever present bundle of joy and energy. Just what Rush needed. He grunted out an approximation of a greeting.

The boy looked unusually somber for a change. "So... are you okay?" he asked at last, looking at the center of Rush's chest.  
  
"I'm fine," Rush replied quickly.  
  
"Good. Err…" Eli trailed off uncomfortably. What the hell was going on with him lately? He sounded...off somehow.  
  
Rush looked at him, really looked at him. Eli's hair had grown, just like everyone else's, and it gave him an even more haggard appearance than usual. Not to mention his unmistakable T-shirt, which was also getting in a very sorry state. It hung slightly askew on him, emphasizing the fact that Eli, just like everyone else on the ship had lost weight, thanks to the dietary regime they were all forced to endure. At least it looked like they could stock up with supplies from this wonder planet.  
  
"You should eat before it gets cold," Rush said after Eli's continued silence.  
  
"Hah! Like anything could make this taste worse," Eli replied after a quick laugh that sounded a wee bit forced to Rush's ears, but the boy picked up his spoon and started to eat his delightful bowl of gruel anyway.  
  
Rush returned to his own meal, trying not to taste too much of what he was eating. After all this time spent on Destiny, he had gotten used to eating as quickly as possible to get it out of the way. One of the things he actually missed from Earth was the pleasure of a good meal - and by that he didn't mean what passed for food among the military these days. On Destiny, eating was just a necessary task he had to complete before he could get back to work.  
  
"Don't you wish you were down on the planet with them?" asked Eli suddenly.  
  
Rush looked up at him and raised a skeptical eyebrow. "No. I have work to do here."  
  
"Yeah, I know, but..."  
  
"Also, I have no particular wish to set foot on a planet anytime soon."  
  
"Riiight. I get that. It's just... never mind."  
  
Rush looked at him exasperated. “What?”  
  
"It's just that... after everything that happened lately, it would be nice to just... relax a bit, you know. In the sunlight, with birds and bees..." he trailed off, looking at Rush suggestively.  
  
"Yes, I'm sure everyone has a delightful time on a planet without a bed, full of insects, and tedious manual labor to fill out their days," replied Rush sarcastically.  
  
"Oh come on! A little bit of sunshine would be great, even for you."  
  
"I prefer the dark."  
  
"Figures," mumbled Eli into his spoon.  
  
Rush let the corner of his mouth curl up in a half-smile. It was safe, Eli was looking into his bowl.  
  
A familiar, raspy voice made Rush turn his head in the direction of the entrance. It was Young, as he suspected. The Colonel walked up to Becker and nodded at him, saying something to the Airman too quietly to hear from this distance. He seemed... well rested. He took his rations and headed over to Lt. James's table.  
  
The man walked like a gorilla, posed to jump at any minute at a perceived threat. This calm facade was very misleading, as Rush knew only too well. The other man could strike out quite unexpectedly, bringing down his enemy within seconds. Rush had the misfortune of experiencing it firsthand.  
  
He looked back at his own bowl, mechanically eating another two spoonfuls of the paste.  
  
"You know, I've been thinking..." Eli started to say.  
  
"Have you?"  
  
"... about how we could improve the shield's capacity. I mean, it's fine right after a fresh recharge, but after taking like a dozen hits, it drains pretty quick, and that's not good, obviously. We don't want to find ourselves in the middle of a battle without shields, right? Sooo, I've been trying to figure out why that is, and to see if we could come up with a way to preserve power without, you know, cutting off our air supply or something... Plus, it's not very practical that we cannot seem to fire at the enemy without draining our energy and becoming even more vulnerable to attack, while the shuttle seems to be perfectly capable of handling both the shields and the weapons at the same time."  
  
Eli was waving his spoon as he talked, gesticulating animatedly, making the liquid-like gruel fly around him in every direction. As a drop of it landed in Rush's bowl, he grabbed the boy's wrist and guided it back to the table. Eli didn't even seem to notice, he just kept on talking. Rush caught Young looking at them from the corner of his eyes, smiling slightly at the boy's theatrics. Rush snapped his hand away from Eli and scowled in Young's direction.

"So, what do you think?" asked Eli eagerly.

"Well, the shuttle needs a lot less energy to maintain its shields," Rush replied distractedly.  
  
"I know, and the shuttle was practically in the same condition after the battle than before. It just doesn't add up."  
  
"So you think there's a leak in Destiny's systems somewhere?" Hmm. It wasn't an altogether impossible assumption.  
  
"Yeah, there must be! I mean, obviously the ship is far from being in mint condition, but even taking hits like this repeatedly couldn't have damaged the shields permanently. There must be a flaw in the system somewhere. It's even possible that it was constructed this way by mistake. After all, the Ancients never came here to test its efficiency, right?" 

"No, but they had to be sure the shields would protect the ship while it's inside a star."

"Exactly! It's like Destiny was designed to withstand a nuclear bomb, but if you throw a dynamite at her, it's game over." 

Rush looked away from Eli and, tapping his fingers on the table, he considered where the possible defect in the system could be. The problem was most likely either with the shield emitter relays, or with the power distribution system itself. Also, since no one had used the weapons before they came here, they were probably still in factory condition - which could both be a good or a bad thing. They could run several analyses in the database to see if there was any possibility for improvement, but after a while, the only way to fine tune either of the systems was with actual testing. Like firing off shots into space, as Colonel Telford had done for the dialing attempt. Unfortunately they couldn't really test the shields without an enemy present, unless they... oh, they could have the shuttle fire at Destiny.  
  
Well then, no reason to delay the research.  
  
"Do you already have a plan for how you want to do this?" He asked their resident boy genius.  
  
Eli looked at him with surprise. "Me?"  
  
"Well, it was your idea," Rush replied, like giving the job to Eli was the most obvious thing in the world. "There's a very real potential for improvement here, and figuring this out could very well help us to survive the next attack."  
  
Eli kept staring at him without blinking, as if he was seeing a ghost.  
  
Rush simply arched an eyebrow at him, trying to keep his amusement from showing on his face.

"Right. I mean, ok," said the boy hurriedly after a couple of seconds of gawking at Rush.  
  
Rush looked at him patiently. Why was it so strange that he would let Eli do this? He would have given him some work sooner, if the boy had been available to him.  
  
"What?" he blurted out suddenly, deciding that the entertainment value of watching Eli squirming was not worth his time after all.  
  
"Nothing! I just... I thought you wanted to do this yourself. You always want to do these things."  
  
"Well, I have plenty of other work to do that is equally as important as this."  
  
"Yes, I know that, but..."  
  
"I suppose you can start with checking the shuttle's power distribution system, and then compare it to Destiny's."  
  
"Riiight..."  
  
"It's a good idea, Eli."  
  
"Err… Thanks?"  
  
"Oh for Christ sake, what?!"

"Nothing! I will do it. I mean, I will check it and... yeah. I will check it."  
  
"Good."  
  
"Yeah. Great! Yippee!"  
  
Rush looked at him dubiously. "If you need help with the systems, just ask, but you should be familiar enough with them by now to be able to figure out how to check for system flaws."  
  
"I am," replied Eli confidently, while still managing to sound offended.  
  
"Good. Finish eating this crap and get down to it. I don't have all day to chat with you."  
  
Eli mumbled something incomprehensible under his breath.  
  
"What was that?"  
  
The boy was looking at him a little apprehensively, like he was afraid Rush would bite his head off. "Err... do you want me to tell Colonel Young?"  
  
Oh, right. Colonel Young. Well, Rush supposed this was as good a time as any to start cooperating with him.  
  
"No need, I will tell him." Young was still eating his breakfast, or more likely pushing it around in his bowl, if his movements were any indication. Just like Eli. "Finish your breakfast, then get to work."  
  
"Yes, boss," Eli grinned cheekily at him, but Rush also caught the relief on his face. At his glare the boy turned back to his gruel quickly, with a long-suffering, but oddly content expression.  
  
Rush stood with his almost finished bowl and went to hand it to Airman Becker. He forced out a quiet thank you, and walked up to the table where Young was being entertained by Lt. James and another marine whose name he couldn't remember.  
  
"Colonel. Do you have a minute?"  
  
Young glanced up at him with curiosity. "Sure."  
  
Rush looked at James from behind his bangs.  
  
"I'd better go, sir. The training exercise will start in 20 minutes, I have to get ready," said the Lieutenant, to Rush's relief.  
  
"Alright. Don't be too strict with them."  
  
"I won't be, sir." She stood up with the other marine at her side, synchronized even in this, and they left him alone with Young.  
  
Rush flopped down on the vacated bench and looked at the remains of Young's breakfast. "Unbelievable. It looks even more disgusting than before."  
  
Young glanced down at his goo and snorted. "Yeah. You never would have thought it possible, right?" He pushed the bowl away from them to make space for his elbows. "So, what did you want to talk about?"  
  
"Eli has a theory about the shields and the weapons system. He thinks there's a possibility we could improve their efficiency. I told him to start working on testing the systems, and figuring out how exactly we could do that."  
  
Young seemed startled for a second, but he quickly covered it up with his customary unreadable expression. Ha! So he didn't really expect Rush to start cooperating, did he?

"Okay, that sounds good. Is there any danger from this testing?" asked Young finally.  
  
"He will start with system diagnostics first, so until we have a better idea about where we could make it more efficient, we won't move on to the actual testing."  
  
"And by actual testing you mean..."  
  
"It's the weapons system. What do you think I mean?" Rush asked brusquely.  
  
Young looked at him sternly. "Rush. When it comes to us and assumptions," he said while motioning between the two of them, "we don't exactly have the greatest track record, so it would probably be best if we talked plainly. No matter how self-explanatory our statements might seem to us."  
  
Well, Rush supposed that was a valid point. He drummed his fingers on the table impatiently, trying not to snap at Young. Well, not again anyway.  
  
"That way you'll have no doubt that I get your technobabble," continued Young, smiling pointedly.  
  
"I see that Carwell hadn't rubbed off on you as much as you would have liked," replied Rush a little too viciously. He just couldn't seem to help himself.  
  
Young only rolled his eyes though, and looked at him expectantly. It seemed like there was a limit to using the same joke multiple times. Rush sighed, feeling oddly disappointed.  
  
"We would fire off some shots from the weapons while monitoring the power flow, trying to see where the leak is, if there is one. Realistically speaking, these shots shouldn't use up so much of our energy as they seem to be doing, so it's well worth the risk to check the system." Young nodded as he listened to Rush. "We would do the same with the shields. You or Lt. Scott would fire at Destiny from the shuttle."  
  
"I'm guessing you will take into account that we are currently rather far from our next potential fuelling station, and won't drain all of our energy with this testing."  
  
Rush rolled his eyes. "No, Colonel, we will make the ship even more vulnerable to attack by purposefully making ourselves defenseless," he replied derisively. So much for not snapping at Young. He decided he had enough of this chitchat. He had told the Colonel what he wanted to, it was time to speed things up a bit. "By the way, Eli's responsible for the project, you will have to check with him for the details, and how he plans to do the rest."  
  
"Eli."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Young looked at him with curiosity, but didn't say anything.  
  
Rush kept drumming his fingers on the table, the rhythm becoming more erratic. "So, does your silence mean you approve of the project, or are you trying to come up with a legitimate-sounding refusal?"

Young blinked at him. "Why would I not approve?"  
  
Rush lifted an eyebrow at him.  
  
"Right, don't answer that." Young took a deep breath. "Alright, go for it. Just... make sure Eli won't blow us up in the process, ok? I mean, check up on him before you move on to the actual, physical testing."  
  
"I was going to."

"And let me know how it goes, the system check. I want to be informed about the results." 

"As I've said, you will have to check with Eli." 

"I will, but you are the lead scientist, so I would appreciate if you were there as well. He might be math boy, but you are the expert when it comes to Ancient technology. I would like the both of your opinions before I approve the physical testing." 

Rush tried to look not too dumbfounded. He suspected he failed. "Fine."

"Good."  
  
It was time to go, before things get too awkward. Rush nodded at the Colonel, then moved to rise from the table when Young's voice interrupted him.  
  
"Is this what the two of you have been talking about earlier? While he was waving around his breakfast?"  
  
Rush managed to turn the beginning of a smile into a grimace. "Yes. He got a bit over-enthusiastic."  
  
Young chuckled, then produced a tissue from one of his pockets, and proceeded to wipe off a splash of gruel from Rush's T-shirt at the right arm.  
  
It all happened so quickly that Rush was too stunned to protest, and by the time he realised he ought to, Young was already putting the tissue away and had resumed eating his own goo.  
  
"Thank you," he mumbled, for lack of anything better to say.  
  
"Mmm."  
  
"I'd better get back to work."  
  
"Ok. Have fun."  
  
Rush grimaced. "Oh, no doubt I will."  
  
He saw Young smiling slightly as he rose from the table. He left the mess hall in a daze, looking bemusedly ahead of himself while he walked to the CI room. 

Baby steps. He supposed the expression was apt for their circumstances. Baby steps indeed.


	4. Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missing scene from Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story would be in much worse shape without all of Potboy's help. Thank you :)

 

When Young arrived at the storage room, he didn't know where to look at first. Greer was being held down by another marine, but it didn't seem like the fight was gone from him yet. Camille sat huddled next to a wall, holding one of her hands to somewhere near her collarbone - it looked like she lost a lot of blood. And Rush was... 

"Hey, stop it! I said STOP!" 

Everyone froze at Young's command and looked at him, waiting for him to specify the reason for it, but he was looking at Rush with as close to a horrified expression as anyone had ever seen him wear. Rush was held down by a soldier, his right arm held in an unnatural angle, and still, he was trying to get away from the airman. Young couldn't keep watching Rush. Yet, he couldn't look away. 

"Everyone, outside, now. Scott, Baras, get Sergeant Greer to the infirmary ASAP." 

"But Sir, we've already radioed TJ to come here," said Scott. 

Young looked at Camille. "Can you walk?" After a nod, he turned back to Scott. "Then these are your new orders, Lieutenant. Thomas, you take Camille. Everyone else, get out of here. No one else is unaccounted for, it's over." 

After several seconds all of them started to make their way out of the room, apart from Rush, Davies, who was still holding him pinned to the floor, and Riley, who seemed reluctant to leave them. Young motioned for him to stay put, then to Davies to let the doctor go and get out as well. 

Rush half crawled and half stumbled to the relative cover of the nearest crate as soon as he was free, holding his right shoulder, looking at Young like he was seeing his worst nightmare - which he probably was. The sudden realization left a hollow pain in Young's chest. 

"Riley, wait outside a couple of minutes, then make sure that the passage to the infirmary is clear. I am going to take Rush there after he has calmed down a bit. It would be better if we didn't encounter anyone on the way." 

While Young was talking he kept glancing at Rush, who was trying to appear as small as possible next to the crate he was sitting at. The other man's expression was of someone who couldn't comprehend what was going on around him. 

"Do you think he is seeing them?" asked Riley. Young flinched. He didn't need Riley to specify who he meant. He already knew. Riley continued anyway. "The blue aliens?" 

There was a world of pain and regret in his answer. "Yeah. Yes, I do." 

Riley obviously picked up on the undertone because the next moment he turned and walked out of the door, leaving Young finally alone with Rush. He had no idea what to do with the scientist. It was obvious though that he had to think of something if he wanted to get Rush to the infirmary. Preferably conscious. 

Right. 

Rush was staring at him, and it looked like he was close to springing for the door or to the back of the room. 

"Rush." 

The scientist flinched at the voice. 

"It's okay, you're safe. You are on Destiny." Young tried to talk slowly and kept his tone soft and unthreatening, but still, Rush visibly flinched every time he uttered a word. He also kept moving his gaze between the door and him. This was not looking good, Young needed to get him to calm down, now. 

"Rush, can you hear me?" Young inched closer to him, hoping to catch him if he decided to make a run for it. The other man suddenly stood up and looked at Young with a mix of fear and desperation, then his expression turned to one of determination. 

Young threw up his hands in front of him in a placating gesture more by instinct than anything else. Rush froze. He was staring at Young completely motionless. 

Young stared back. 

"It's okay." He tried again. Rush flinched again, but this time his determination won out and he stayed put. Young had a feeling that the man was not hearing him. Or rather, that he was hearing something else. It probably made sense that if he was seeing the aliens, he was hearing them as well, didn't it? After all, Greer acted like he heard the exact opposite of what he was saying earlier to him on the radio. 

"Rush?" He tried one last time, still keeping his hands outstretched in front of him. 

"Colonel Young?" Rush whispered. 

Finally. 

"Yes." Young said softly, then nodded. 

"Are you using the stones?"

Well, that answered what Rush was seeing for sure. Young shook his head, hoping Rush wouldn't get the wrong idea. The scientist was still on the verge of running for it, he had to figure out a way of getting through to him. 

Then he saw the notebook poking out of Rush's pocket. It was risky, but he had nothing better to go with. He slowly lowered his left hand, then with the right he mimed writing. 

Rush looked at him incredulously. 

"You want to write?" 

Again, Young nodded, then pointed at the notebook. Rush glanced down, then with a sudden flash of understanding he took it out of his pocket and slowly held out his hand towards Young. 

Young reached for it, equally slowly. He had a sudden flashback to Rush handing him the alien device back on that spaceship. Rush had just got out of that tank but almost the next second he was already thinking about a way to escape. It was incredible how quickly the other man reacted to the changes of his surroundings, his circumstances. He would have made a good soldier, well, apart from the following orders part of the job. 

Rush seemed to trust him for now, however tentatively, which was a good sign. As soon as his fingers closed around the notebook, the scientist let go of it, then produced a pencil stub from his back pocket. Young held out his left hand, palm upwards. Rush warily dropped the pencil into his hand, then stepped back, leaning slightly on the crate. 

Young considered what to write while he opened the notebook to an empty page. "It's Young. You are on Destiny. I am not using the stones. You are safe." 

He almost held it out to Rush, but then realised it would probably just confuse the other man even more. He needed to clarify what was going on. He wouldn't believe this in Rush's place, and he was probably a little more trusting than the scientist. 

"Alien ticks on the last planet. Away party picked some up. Makes you hallucinate. We caught all of them but yours. TJ can remove it." 

He decided this would have to do, and Rush was looking at the notebook impatiently anyway. He would just have to ask Young for more details if he didn't believe him. 

Young held the notebook out to Rush, who took it, making sure he wasn't touching Young in the process. He quickly read the few lines Young wrote. Young was looking at him attentively, waiting for the penny to drop. 

He didn't have to wait long. As soon as Rush was done reading, he glanced up at Young with such a hopeful and relieved expression that Young had to look down for a moment. 

Rush believed him. 

"I recognize your handwriting." Rush said. "But when I look at you, I still see one of them. It must take the brain a couple of minutes to reassess my understanding of the circumstances and my surroundings." He was looking at the notebook again, as if he was trying to convince his own brain, his own eyes that what he has been seeing was not real. 

"I saw Greer holding a gun, before the room got crowded." Rush was saying to the floor while lowering his arm that was holding Young's scribblings. "Right after one of them punched me. I must have hit my head. That probably cleared it for a second." He looked like he was trying to figure out one of those mathematical problems he was usually working on. "I saw him pointing a gun at Camille, so I hit him. Then the blast threw me off." He stopped the monologue, then glanced up at Young again. "Then I saw them again. The blue aliens." Young swallowed, then slowly nodded. 

"So we just have to find the tick and get it out?" Rush finally asked, then tentatively reached out to give him back the notebook, glancing at it again. As Young reached for it, Rush grabbed his hand. 

Young forced himself to remain calm. Rush didn't do anything, he was just holding Young's wrist and staring at his hand. Then he blinked exaggeratedly a couple of times, and finally closed his eyes. Young stood motionless, then tentatively took the notebook in his other hand, and closed his fingers on Rush's wrist in a mimic of his hold. 

Rush opened his eyes, then let out a shaky breath, mixed in with a hoarse chuckle.

"It's working. I can see your hand." 

Young let out a relieved breath he didn't realise he'd been holding until then. He almost started to speak, but then stopped himself. It wouldn't be wise to spook Rush again now that he seemed to have his trust. He slowly moved closer to the crate, all the while keeping a hold on Rush's hand. Rush still didn't look up at him. Young put the notebook on the crate, then wrote another sentence below his previous lines. 

"Do you think you will hear me, if I speak now?" 

He pulled Rush closer to the crate, then held the note over their linked hands. 

Rush glanced at the bottom of the page, then whispered "I don't know." He pushed the notebook out of the way to look at their hands once again. 

"Maybe we should check first if my brain can interpret your whole self yet before we add auditory stimulus into the picture." Rush said, then started to move his gaze slowly upwards, towards Young's face, while his grip on Young's hand gradually got stronger. 

Rush's gaze finally reached Young's name sewed on his uniform, then with a relieved breath he snapped his eyes to Young's face. 

Young was watching him tentatively, waiting him out, but when Rush didn't move his gaze from his eyes, he risked a small curve of his lips, trying for a smile. Rush blinked once, then started to pull his hand away. 

Young reflexively tightened his hold on him, keeping his eyes on Rush's face.

"Hey" he whispered. 

Rush stopped his backward momentum, then almost shyly answered Young. "Hey." 

Young gave a small, relieved smile. The hard part was over."Are you okay?" 

"Yeah, I'm fine." Rush answered, then once again tried to take his hand out of Young's grip. 

"Hey, stop. Don't you think you will see them again if we stop touching?" The sentence was such an absurd one that he almost laughed out loud. Almost. He suspected it would not turn out well if he did. 

"Yeah, maybe." said Rush, then looked at the entrance of the room. "Where is everyone?" 

"I sent them away. Everyone with a tick is accounted for, we just have to get it out of you. 

Rush nodded, then with a sudden realisation turned to Young again. "I think I've stabbed someone." 

"Yeah, Camille. She's gonna be fine though, don't worry about it." 

Rush looked relieved, then turned his gaze somewhere near the wall. Young followed it to the pipe still lying in the floor. "Greer was here with you as well, he was the one who locked you in the room." 

"Yes, I hit him too." Rush said, than glanced obliquely at Young. 

"He's okay. He probably needed something heavy swung at his thick head anyway." Young tried to dissolve the remaining tension. Rush looked at him blankly for a second, then his mouth curved upwards at the corners a bit. 

Young mimicked the gesture tentatively. He decided it was a good a time as any to try to make it to TJ. "Riley is outside the door. He will go before us and clear the way to the infirmary." Rush nodded, then turned to the exit of the room with Young, hands still clasped together. 

"Riley, you there?" he said in a louder voice. Riley stepped into the doorway. "Yes, sir." 

Rush suddenly turned to Young, staring at him like he's just seen a ghost. 

So Rush's new clear sight was only working for Young then. "Hey, it's okay, it's just Riley." He squeezed Rush's hand firmly, trying to reassure him. "You're still seeing me, right?" 

"Yeah." 

"Good. Then you'll just have to concentrate on me, and you're gonna be fine." 

"Yeah... yeah, okay." 

Young turned back to Riley. "Alright Sergeant. You can lead the way. We will trail behind you. Make sure you tell everyone you meet on the way to get out of sight. And if you could find us a more isolated bed in the infirmary? That would be useful." 

"Yes sir." 

The pressure of Rush's fingers on his hand kept increasing. "And Sergeant? Don't worry if you don't see us behind you. We will take our time getting there." 

"Yes sir." 

Thankfully when Riley turned to stride away towards the infirmary, the tension from Rush visibly eased. His frame still vibrated with pent up energy, so Young figured he should keep him occupied with something while they waited for Riley to get farther away from them. 

"So, what were you doing before all this happened?" Rush snapped out of his staring stance, which was starting to make Young nervous anyway, and glanced at the door. 

"I... What?" 

"Before you started seeing them. What were you working on? I bet a day's rations you were researching something in Destiny's databanks instead of coming to dinner again." 

"Yes, well, knowing what's for dinner, can you really blame me?" Rush replied distractedly. 

Young chuckled at that. He shook his head as he switched hands, holding Rush's right with his left one now, and started to slowly walk towards the door. Rush quickly checked that the doorway was still empty, then snapped his eyes back to Young. At least he was walking fairly steadily with him, even if Young's hand already started to ache from the death grip Rush was keeping on it. 

When they reached the doorway he motioned to Rush to stop while he poked his head out to check the corridor. It was clear. 

They turned in the direction of the infirmary, walking at a steadier pace now. Young's hand was really starting to lose feeling though, so he shifted his fingers a bit to entwine them with Rush's. It was a little too intimate, but Rush didn't seem to notice, he just kept moving his glance between the corridor ahead of them and Young, fearing that the aliens might jump out at them after the next corner. 

"Hey, you didn't answer. I'm going think you were plotting something if you won't tell me." Young tried to get Rush's attention again. It seemed to work as the scientist's gaze stayed on Young this time. 

"You always think I'm plotting something." 

"Well, you usually are." 

"Yes, but not necessarily against you." 

"Oh? Who do you want to replace now? Because if it's Becker, I wholeheartedly support you." 

Rush shot him an almost smile at that, then turned again to look behind them quickly. 

"That man really needs some cooking lessons," added Young. 

"What he needs is a better kitchen. And better ingredients." 

Young couldn't argue with that. "Yes, well, I hear there are some promising exotic vegetables growing in hydroponics that we might get to taste in the next couple of days." 

"If they are anything like the last batch, I think I'll pass, thank you." 

"Come on, they weren't so bad. They made Eli's face orange." Young chuckled at the memory, squeezing Rush's hand, mainly to check if he still had blood flow in his fingers. Rush smiled at him more easily this time, and he even squeezed back, then loosened the iron grip he had on Young's hand. God but the man was deceptively strong. 

They continued in this way, getting closer to the infirmary. It suddenly occurred to Young that maybe he was being uncharacteristically nice to Rush, with all this helping him to get back to the land of reality, almost like shielding him from his own mind. 

Why did he make Rush the priority? Camille was bleeding, for God's sake, she was possibly in more danger than anyone else, yet the first thing he reacted to was Rush, lying incapacitated, helpless and in pain. And he wanted to make it better, wanted to make it go away. Why the hell was his first instinct to protect the scientist? Was it because _he_ was the cause of the man's worst fear? It seemed like he couldn't let go of this choking guilt, every time it surfaced it made him want to help Rush, or just to make it all disappear. Was this how it was going to be like from now on? He really, really didn't need this. 

He would have to think about this later, now he needed to concentrate on Rush, and on getting this bloody tick out of him. 

They were one corner away from the infirmary, so Young started to slow down a bit before calling out in a louder voice. "Riley, you there?" 

"Yes sir." 

"Have you found us a bed?" 

"Yes sir, it's in the right back corner of the infirmary. Behind a screen." 

"Good. Thank you, Sergeant. Dismissed." He turned to Rush "You're good to get in there? The others who had ticks in them are there still under surveillance, and TJ, so about 6-7 people altogether. Oh, and Camille I suppose." 

Rush looked a bit pale but nodded, not moving his gaze from Young. 

"OK. Just keep looking at me if it gets too crowded. I'll try to get us to the back quickly." That being said, he turned to the entrance of the infirmary with Rush at his side, holding Rush's hand as if Rush was a lost little boy who was ready to confront his worst nightmare. 

They made it to the indicated bed fairly easily as the passage was mostly cleared, they only had to walk around a piece of strange medical equipment that was pushed to the wall to keep it out of the way. Rush kept his gaze on the floor, trying to appear confident but overall not really succeeding - Young's hand was going to need an X-ray after this. 

Once they reached the bed, Rush sat down on it, his whole body trembling now, and lowered his gaze. 

Young stepped in front of him, putting their joined hands on the bed beside him, and tried to catch the other man's eyes. Rush finally looked at him through his bangs with something like anger and terror and desperation, lips trembling, his whole frame vibrating with repressed tension again. He must truly hate this, having to depend on Young. Young couldn't really blame the guy for that. 

"Hey, it's ok, you're doing great. It's almost over now. Then you can get some of that dinner you've missed." 

Rush blinked at him, but the tension didn't ease from his body. Young tried squeezing his hand again, but the grip was already so strong he doubted the other man felt anything more. New tactic: he caught Rush's other hand with his right one and moved his thumb in what he hoped was soothing circles over the base of his palm, trying to divert the oncoming panic attack. 

"Come on, just hold on a little more, and you can get back to plotting your devious plans." Rush zoned out for a second, then glanced down at their newly joined hands a bit startled. Young kept stroking his palm, anything to distract him. 

When they heard someone approaching Rush jumped down off the bed and put his back to the wall, his gaze hysterically moving between Young and the gap between the wall and the screen. 

"TJ, is that you?" Young asked, raising his voice a little. 

"Yes. Riley told me about his condition. Can I come in?" 

"Give us a second, he only recognizes me for the moment." 

He turned to Rush, who was looking at him desperately, clearly wanting to get this whole thing over with. "It's TJ. She's gonna take out the tick, OK? It'll take just a second. Do you wanna try if you can see her?" 

Rush nodded halfheartedly. 

"OK, TJ. Come in, let's try this." He held onto Rush hands, in case the stress was too much for the scientist and he decided it was time to bolt - or in case it was too much for his body to handle and he collapsed. Young kept his gaze on him as he heard TJ come closer to them. Rush pressed himself even closer to the wall, if that was even possible. 

"Doctor Rush?" Asked TJ tentatively. Rush's frame jerked. It was one hell of a hallucinogenic, this bloody venom, or poison, or whatever it was. 

"You don't hear her, do you?" 

"No," came the hollow reply. 

"OK, I won't bother asking who you're seeing either." Young stepped between them to block TJ from Rush's sight as much as possible. "Alright, I've got an idea. The tick should be on the back of your head, near your neck, so how about we both turn around and you keep looking at me while TJ takes it out?" 

Rush looked like the last thing he wanted to do was turn his back to the alien he was seeing, but they both wanted to get this done, so he forced himself to nod with the expression of someone on the verge of a heart attack, then simply closed his eyes and let himself become limp so Young could move him. 

Young couldn't get over the strength of the man as he slowly moved them into position. Rush was a stubborn pragmatic bastard with an iron will, and an iron grip apparently, who evaluated every situation lightening quick and made the best possible decision based on the facts available to him. He was ruthless even on himself. Young couldn't help but admire him in this moment. And be a little bit humbled at the trust Rush placed in him, even if he was the only one who was in a position to help him in the current situation. 

As TJ approached them, he instinctively felt Rush was at the end of his rope, the tension was just too much for his body to contain. The man had surgery only weeks ago for god's sake, was a small miracle he was still conscious. Young wanted to do something, to make this mess go away, to undo every bad decision they made since they've met and just... do something. He had no clue what, but he just knew that everything would be better if he did it. 

He let go of Rush's left hand and put his arm around his back instead, trying to envelope him, to protect him. He was quite surprised when the doctor put his head on his shoulder as a response, as if to hide away from the world, and gripped his jacket at his back. 

Man this was weird. Holding Rush like this, protecting him felt like he always knew it would, if the other man would only let him. But he knew perfectly well this was a one-time thing, and as soon as the tick was out, everything would be swept under the rug, so to speak. Rush would go back to being a stubborn brilliant bastard with his secrets and shifty behaviour, which even with the recent improvements was far from what they should have as a relationship. A well-oiled working relationship. 

He squeezed Rush's left shoulder and started to move his hand in small circles over his upper back, then looked at TJ a little desperately. She already had the venom soaked tissue in her hand, and she started to move Rush's unruly hair out of the way. Rush tensed again at the touch, but held on to Young, keeping his head more or less in the same position. 

"It's ok, we're almost done," he whispered. TJ nodded, so she must have found the little bugger. "She's putting some anesthetic on the tick now." He kept stroking Rush's back as that seemed to reassure him, but TJ poking around in the scientist's hair was obviously hard for the man as he jerked away periodically from her. 

Young let go of Rush's other hand and gently swatted away TJ's fingers from their position to put his own hand in place of hers. He swept his fingers through the long locks and tried to hold it pinned to the top of Rush's head. He felt more than heard a small moan from the man between his arms. Christ, why the hell did he think he could deal with this? He was so over his head there was no scale that could possibly measure it. 

Ok, he needed to stay calm, they were almost done. This was his job. His responsibility. "Shhh. It's fine, just hold on a little more and we'll be done. You're doing great." 

Rush put his other arm around him too, clutching the back of Young's jacket and trying to press himself closer to Young - or more likely away from TJ -, yet simultaneously trying to keep some semblance of distance between them. It was not an easy task, the man was basically plastered all over Young by the time TJ held up the tick to show him. He let out a relieved sigh, then waited for TJ to kill the thing. 

Once that was done, she checked Rush's head one more time, then nodded at Young to release the other man. 

"OK, we're done. It's over." He gripped Rush's shoulders gently then stepped back a bit to check how he was doing. Rush opened his eyes slowly and dazedly. Did he pass out for a second? He seemed confused as he blinked several times at Young, giving the impression he was not really seeing him. His hair was all over his face, which made Young smile - Rush looked like he had just woken up from a deep sleep, that almost innocent expression you have when you open your eyes to greet the day, disheveled, disoriented, and a little adorable. 

"Hey. Rush. You OK?" Young gently squeezed his shoulders for emphasis. The other man blinked a couple of times, then nodded slowly. 

"Yeah. Yes, I'm fine. It's out?" 

"Yes. Want to check if you can see TJ?" 

Rush nodded, then turned his head around, away from the wall and away from Young. 

TJ smiled tentatively at him. "Doctor Rush?" 

"Lieutenant." Rush breathed out, clearly relieved. 

Young smiled at TJ over the top of Rush's head, then let his hands slowly fall away from him as he stepped up next to the man. "Great. That's all of them accounted for, right, lieutenant? 

"Yes, I already removed Greer's before you arrived, sir." 

"Good. You should check Rush's vitals, he wasn't doing too good earlier, and his right arm might possibly be sprained." 

Rush shot him a halfheartedly annoyed look, then automatically moved to sit on the bed. 

"You're gonna be fine?" Young asked him again, because standing next to the man doing nothing became suddenly too awkward. It also seemed futile now. 

"Yeah," came the tired reply. Rush was fine, not hallucinating anymore, and Young really should check on the rest of the patients. He needed to reassure himself that this was finally over. And he needed to get away from Rush, probably just as much as Rush needed his privacy, and some semblance of his dignity back. 

"Ok. I'll go check on Camille." 

He turned to step out from behind the screen when he heard Rush's quiet "Thank you." 

Young stopped mid-step before turning around to look at the scientist. The man's gaze was tired but unwavering, looking directly at Young. It was a little uncomfortable, but then again, the whole situation was so far out of both of their comfort zones he really didn't know why he still bothered feeling the strangeness of it. 

Weirdly enough, Rush's silent gaze and his quite thank you felt even more intimate than all of their touching. Young was not used to either anymore: neither physical comfort, however platonic, nor emotional support. Since they got to Destiny, neither was readily available for him. Even before Destiny there had been nothing uncomplicated, nothing unquestionably good for a long time. He missed it. It felt good to be there for someone, even if that someone was Rush. 

Young nodded to the man, then stepped out of his little safe corner quietly. He checked on Camille and Greer, and when he made sure both of them were alright and safe, he headed back to his quarters. 

He tried not to recall the utter fear and desperation in Rush's expression from earlier. He tried not to remember the choking guilt he felt at seeing the other man like that. He had no business feeling any of this. They had discussed their... issues and they had moved on, rather successfully, considering. There was no need to dwell on the past, it would not resolve anything. 

Rush was practical. As much as he hated the man's cold, logical reasoning most of the time, it had its bright side. In this case, it meant that Rush would most likely pretend that this day hadn't happened at all. He would return to being mostly cooperative without ever dealing with the trauma. Which, admittedly, was not a healthy approach in this case, but he doubted Rush would like to talk about this, or about how it affected him. Especially with Young. 

He would have to check on the scientist tomorrow to test the waters. They were scheduled for a visit to Earth in a couple of days, when Rush was supposed to give a progress report about the unlocking of Destiny's master code. Young could definitely use a walk outside in the fresh air. In a preferably tick-free environment.

 


	5. What It Could Be Like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the bantering routine is reestablished

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, many thanks to Potboy for the beta work and all the great advice!

 

Rush was contemplating how to best run a particular search in Destiny's database in the CI room, when he heard the unmistakable pattern of the Colonel's military issue boots echoing in the corridor's quiet. Wonderful, just what he needed. He was hoping to avoid this conversation with Young, but alas, it looked like the other man was determined to get his way, as usual.

"Hey," Young said as soon as he rounded the corner. 

"Hey," Rush replied with a disgusted voice, then turned back to his console. He really hated colloquialisms. 

"So." 

This was getting ridiculous. "So?" 

"How's the..." Instead of words Young tried to convey what he meant by using a mix of hand gestures and facial expressions, pointing in the vague direction of Rush's head, then at his shoulder. It would have been quite funny if Rush hadn't been so desperate to get out of this conversation. 

"It's fine." 

"Good. That's... good." 

"Quite." 

"So." 

"We've already been here. Or are we in a time loop again?" Rush asked deadpan. 

Young quirked up the corner of his lips, but remained silent. 

"Is there a point to you interrupting my work?" demanded Rush finally, after Young stayed quiet for too long. 

"Me checking up on my chief scientist isn't enough?" 

Rush couldn't contain the derisive snort at that. 

"What?" 

"Oh, nothing Colonel. I just find you quite... predictable, that's all." 

It was Young's turn to snort. "Predictable? That's the best insult you can come up with? You must be tired." 

Rush glanced back at the screen quickly. Of course he was tired. He came up with all sorts of unimportant things to do, anything just to avoid going back to his quarters. He couldn't go to sleep. Not yet. Not when it was certain that the nightmares would inevitably follow. 

But he couldn't tell that to Young, especially not after the other man witnessed Rush's delusional display yesterday. That was embarrassing enough in itself, thank you very much, without the way he had clung to the Colonel like his life depended on it, as if Young was the only one who could save Rush from them. 

As if Rush _trusted_ him. 

That was downright ridiculous. 

He realised that Young was still looking at him, likely waiting for him to snap. Oh. Perhaps Rush should have actually pretended to work on something instead of just staring at the screen like a lunatic. 

"Well? If there is nothing else, I'd like to get back to work. As you can see I'm perfectly fine, you can go to sleep, Colonel." 

Young didn't say anything, just kept looking at him, with his patented 'I know you are keeping something from me and I'm gonna stand here until you tell me what it is' look. It was bloody annoying. 

Why wouldn't he just leave? Rush hated feeling like this. So unsettled. So... vulnerable. 

He decided the best strategy was going to be to ignore Young. With that in mind, Rush opened the interface to run another query about Destiny's power distribution system. Apparently that faulty FTL module blowing up at the end of the other galaxy was a mixed blessing. Now that the system didn't have to compensate for that, it had more capacity to highlight other, potentially serious issues on the ship. And Rush was trying to deal with the most important ones all alone, only delegating the minor problems to his science team. After all, if even Rush didn't understand some of these systems, how much chance would anyone else have? 

Still, most of the work was laid out, they could finish it during the next couple of days. So he really didn't need to stay up any longer. But Young didn't know that. He probably wouldn't understand a word if Rush started to explain the shield emitter relays, and their dependence on the power distribution system to him. The man couldn't even be bothered to learn the most basic Ancient words and expressions. Like he was above all that. Instead of having Eli spy on him all those weeks ago, Young could have asked the kid to teach him something useful. Of course, that's not how the military operated, right? 

Rush needed to stop this train of thought. It just made him exasperated with this whole situation - a mismatched crew barely held together by three dysfunctional leaders. Even if they seemed to be doing better lately, they were far from a cohesive unit. 

He was going to glare a hole in the screen. 

Young was still there, stubbornly staring at him. This strategy of ignoring the man was clearly going to shite. Fine, if he wanted to study the bloody apple core, Rush was not going to stop him. He quickly pressed several buttons then motioned at the other console in the room. "If you have nothing better to do at least try to make yourself useful." 

Young startled, then looked at him suspiciously. He shuffled over to the indicated console, squinting at the screen, clearly expecting it to bite him if he ventured too close. 

"What's this?" 

"That shiny thing is called the screen. That combined with the buttons below allow you to interface with Destiny." 

"Very funny, Rush," replied Young exasperatedly. "I meant what do you want me to do with it." 

"Read it." 

Young glanced at the screen, but as Rush expected, it didn't hold his attention for too long. 

"It's in Ancient." 

"Ah, so you recognize it. You're not as hopeless as I thought then," he commented snidely. 

"Rush," growled Young, clearly getting impatient. 

"Don't you think it's time you actually learned some Ancient?" 

"I know some Ancient," Young said offended. Rush naturally ignored him. 

"It's getting quite tiresome to translate every little bloody word your soldiers find on the ship's consoles. I don't see why you still haven't made them learn some Ancient. Even if you don't believe me, we are stuck on Destiny for the foreseeable future, and currently I have no way of getting us home." 

"Not that you're trying." 

Rush froze for a second, but Young's words and the tone of his voice didn't match. He risked a glance at the Colonel's face to get some more data, and... yes, the man looked almost like he was... amused? No, that couldn't be right. Unless he was deliberately baiting Rush, but Young wouldn't do that, right? Well, he wouldn't do that _before_ yesterday's events, but now, did he think they were some kind of comrades? Friends even? Did he think Rush _owed_ him something? 

When hell freezes over. 

"Well, excuse me, but lately I've been rather preoccupied with keeping us alive. Maybe if you hadn't wasted our rather limited intellectual resources with unnecessarily checking my every step, we would have found a way by now." He knew Eli's Kinos were not trailing him anymore, but still, it wouldn't hurt to remind Young that he hadn't been exactly helping Rush with this little problem before. Rather the opposite, in fact. 

Young froze for a moment, clearly uncomfortable. Point to Rush. 

"Well, don't look so guilty, Colonel, it's not like you've been trying to keep this whole Eli spying thing a secret, you weren't exactly subtle about it." 

After hesitating a little it looked like Young was going to ignore his comment about their never-ending trust issues because he turned back to his screen. "I haven't made him check anything for weeks now. Is this the schematic of the engines?" 

Rush tried to hide his surprise at the Colonel's correct guess, but he suspected that staring stupidly at Young was not a good way of accomplishing that. He shook himself out of his stupor, then quickly nodded. 

"It is. How did you know?" 

"I flew the shuttle a couple of times, the basic controls' names stuck with me. And it's like Latin." 

Another staring session. "You know Latin?" 

Young looked like he was going to reply, but then glanced back at the screen instead. "You wanted me to do something with this, or are you just trying to make some kind of an elaborate point?" 

Ah, typical. Young could pry into his personal business, but Rush was not allowed to do the same. Way to earn trust, Colonel. 

"Scroll down on the right side, you will see different sections of the ship. Seeing as you're the commander of this mission," he couldn't help sneering this last part, "and apparently have nothing better to do than to annoy me, at least do something useful. Maybe familiarize yourself with the sections' names and their relative locations to each other, for example." 

Young rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored his jab. "I'm familiar with the general layout of the ship, Rush. Aren't most of these sections closed off to us?" 

"That might be so, but I'm hoping we will have more opportunity to undertake some much needed exploring soon. The ship is enormous, we are barely occupying ten percent of it, as you well know. There must be more of those repair robots tucked away somewhere for instance, and space suits. We could also use more medical equipment, as I'm sure Lt. Johanssen is getting bored with disinfecting every bloody scrap of clothes with Mr. Brody's alcohol." 

"Right. So you think if we identify the sections that might possibly contain more of this equipment, we could make a direct route to them?" 

"Yes, and possibly open up more sections along the way. There might be an actual kitchen hidden away somewhere for all we know. Or a bigger mess hall, or rec room, with more equipment meant to entertain a bigger crowd. I'm sure both you and Camille would appreciate a place like that, where people could 'chill out', so to speak. It's good for morale." 

"Yes, that would be nice," Young said with his customary lack of enthusiasm. 

"No need to contain your happiness around me, Colonel. Your reputation is safe with me," added Rush sarcastically. 

Young snorted. "That's very generous of you, thanks. Also, I'm sure you wouldn't mind a place where people could chill out either. If it would improve productivity." 

"Well, it would certainly be useful, yes," Rush replied, narrowing his eyes at Young. 

"And where you could also go to chill out, maybe play a game of chess with a poor, unlucky soul," added Young nonchalantly. 

Rush blinked at the Colonel, who was looking at him clearly with amusement this time. Was it possible then, that Young really did mean what he said all those weeks back, when he first caught Rush making the chess pieces? Rush figured the other man had just tried to offer something he'd known Rush would refuse, but it looked like he might have truly meant it as an invitation to play. Well, Rush would have to think about this later. 

"Seeing as I would wipe the chessboard with them, they most certainly would be unlucky." 

Young's amusement showed in an upturn of the corner of his lips. He dropped the subject of chess though, correctly surmising that it was not the right time to get a game out of Rush. 

"Weren't most of these sections closed off due to life support not working there?" 

"We didn't turn on life support _because_ we weren't using those sections. But that system is fully under our control now, so we can turn it on wherever we want to do some exploring. Obviously we would need to check the condition in those sections, and there are those remote parts of the ship which are probably too damaged to get to, but otherwise I see no reason why we couldn't reclaim more ground." 

"Ok, so you want me to try to identify potentially useful sections of the ship, right?" asked Young. 

"Yes, you could start with that, or at least eliminate sections that we have no use for. 

"Okay." 

"Who knows where you had your soldiers poking around on the ship without me knowing anyway. You might already know what some of those rooms contain," Rush added with a sneer in his voice. 

"You don't really believe I would send anyone blindly to unknown sections of the ship, do you?" Young asked indignantly. Rush just shot him a challenging look. "Come on, I would at least have Eli check if it's safe beforehand, and we both know he can't keep a secret if his life depended on it." 

Rush snorted at that. "Well, you have a point there." 

For a couple of minutes, the only sound in the room was the clicks of the buttons as the both of them immersed themselves in work. It was unexpectedly peaceful. So peaceful in fact, that it started to grate on Rush's nerves. 

Why the hell did he give Young a job? The man was not part of his bloody science team. Like he didn't have better things to do, the stubborn idiot. He just wanted to keep an eye on Rush after yesterday's events. Wasn't Lt. Johanssen's 'all clear' enough for him? Rush was fine, there was really no need to make a big deal out of this. 

Well, at least the job would get done. Even Young was better at this than Volker - although that really wasn't anything to be proud of. Rush continued with his analysis, trying to ignore the other man's presence in the room. 

 

...

 

"Rush. You're gonna fall out of your chair." 

He looked up at Young only to find him standing next to his console. Huh, when did he get here? Rush blinked a couple of times, then shook his head. 

"Come on. You can finish this tomorrow. I'm almost done with the mapping too, we can discuss our options then." 

"Fine." He closed the program and locked the screen, then started to get out of the seat. 

"So, here after breakfast tomorrow?" 

"Yes, yes. I'll be here." 

"Good. Now get some sleep." 

"Stop bossing me around," Rush snapped, belatedly realising there was no real force behind his words. 

"I would, if you were actually able to tell when you needed to stop working." 

Young's comment suddenly, uncomfortably, reminded Rush of Gloria - how she'd always made sure he stopped working himself into exhaustion. That he got at least the minimum sleep required for normal functioning. Of course it was easier back then, he had a place he could call home, he had a wife who loved him, and he had... he had a life. A good life, that he didn't always appreciate as much as he should have. And Gloria held everything together. His whole life revolved around her presence, and Rush wondered sometimes how the hell he managed to function without her. 

He forced himself to get back into the present. Thinking about Gloria at this point was not good for his sleeping. Well, he doubted anything could help at this point, to be frank. 

"I'm perfectly capable of doing that. I just dislike leaving something unfinished. Which obviously doesn't bother you." 

Young looked at him oddly, but didn't comment on Rush zoning out for a while. "It will probably take me ten minutes in the morning to do what I'd take twice the time on now, tired as I am. Who knows how many of your projects have suffered because of your poor time management skills." 

"Excuse me? I believe what you call 'poor time management skills' saved your life numerous times already, but by all means, I will just do eight working hour days from now on, if that's your order, Colonel. But I can assure you, you will see the result of that in less than a day." 

Young seemed amused for some reason. "Oh please. I didn't ask you to decrease your work time by half, but to actually get some sleep when you are about to collapse while sitting down." 

Getting back to the now almost familiar bantering territory felt oddly reassuring, even if the Colonel was starting to get on his nerves. Maybe Rush should have hit him over the head with the bloody pipe yesterday when he had the chance. No one would have blamed him, he was delusional. 

"I believe that at my age I am perfectly capable to tell how much sleep I require," he spat, then strode out of the room. 

"No need to get shirty, Rush. Eli could help out if you'd actually let him. He doesn't have any authorized side projects going on, he should have the time." said Young while following him. 

Did he think Rush needed permission to give Eli work? Bloody bastard. Could Rush somehow get them to travel back in time and get some of those ticks? Really, it would have been the perfect bloody excuse to off the man, he should have taken it. Annoying bastard. 

"Eli's a good kid. You should trust him with more serious work." 

"More serious work? Everything the science team does here is serious. Well, except for Volker." 

"Yeah, right." Young shook his head at him, smiling slightly. "So, you're gonna be okay?" 

"I will, if you finally leave me in peace." 

Young looked at him sharply. 

"Yes, I'll be fine," Rush amended reluctantly. 

"Alright then," Young said quietly. "Goodnight." 

"Goodnight," Rush grumbled back, then started the slow walk back to his quarters. 

He was exhausted, it felt like he'd been up since forever. He should really try to get some sleep, he was scheduled to switch with Colonel Telford tomorrow, to give a progress report about the unlocking of Destiny's master code. There was really no point though, as he tried to explain to Camille earlier. He might have been able to ignore her, if he hadn't been feeling somewhat responsible for her injuries. The program was going through the possibilities quietly in the background, and they could do nothing until it finished running. 

Still, it might be nice to have a change of scenery after the craziness of the last couple of days. He might even go outside for a quick walk after he was done with the obligatory, and completely unnecessary report. With that in mind, he hit the door switch to his quarters and stepped into the darkness that awaited him.

 


	6. Incursion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one was a bit trickier. Takes place during Incusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, many thanks to Potboy for the beta work and all the great advice!

 

The tension was becoming unbearable. Young looked around the room, looked at all those desperate faces. They were all waiting for him to do something, to come up with a solution. They were relying on him. And he felt like he'd already given all he had. After the last long hours that felt like a lifetime, he was at the end of his rope. 

He turned to the only man who apparently didn't expect anything from him anymore. 

"Come with me. Now." 

Young didn't wait for Rush, he just turned on his heels and marched out of the Control Interface room in the direction of the mess hall. He only slowed down once he heard the other man's shoes echoing in the corridor. When he deemed the distance from the CI room sufficient enough, he turned into the first empty room and waited for Rush to follow. 

They had to sort this out. Young could feel that he was starting to lose control of the situation, and he needed his people to concentrate, to work it out because he couldn't. He needed Rush to find a solution. And that was not going to happen while he was busy blaming Young for everything. 

The Lucian Alliance had TJ. They had twelve of his people and they had TJ. He had to do something, now. He, they had to solve this. And without Eli, Rush was their best chance.

As soon as Rush stepped into the room, Young slammed his hand on the door control panel and turned to the other man. 

"Ok. Out with it. Tell me." 

"I've already told you." 

"What do you want me to do then?" 

"What do I want?" Rush asked with a hysterical edge in his voice, as he advanced on Young. "What I want is you to go back in time and get me out of there before they fucking torture me into helping them!" Young didn't try to stop the punch coming his way. In a way, he deserved it after all, although probably not for the same reasons that Rush was accusing him. It even helped him clear his head a little. 

"You'd already been taken, we had no way of tracking you until Telford told us the location of that planet, and what the LA wanted with you," he offered calmly, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "We didn't know they'd found out who you were," he added quietly. He kept his distance from the other man, who, strangely enough, seemed to have collected himself a bit as well after hitting Young. 

"I suppose that's why you didn't disconnect the stones?!" 

"I had orders to interrogate Telford. His cover had been blown by then, if we disconnected you, he would most likely have been killed." Young was surprised by how calm, how rational he sounded. He hated himself for it. 

"Better me than him, right?" Rush spat bitterly. 

"That's not what I said. We needed the intel about the LA, we didn't know how long Telford had been working for them, he'd been undercover for a year before Icarus. Stargate Command needed to know what information was leaked to them." Young tried to sound reasonable, and kept his voice from rising in volume. "It was the perfect chance to find out what Telford knew. We might never have had another opportunity like that again. There were bigger things at stake." 

Rush gave a disbelieving laugh. "Right. So, you're telling me that it was for the greater good then." He was looking at Young like a man betrayed. 

Young was trying to keep his calm, trying to keep his emotions under control. He knew he was very close to losing it, he had to get himself together. The mental and emotional anguish was taking its toll on him, and locking everything away was becoming harder by the second, especially with Rush hell bent on provoking him. 

They needed to sort this out. They needed to be on the same page, now more than ever before, so he was going to do the rational thing: he would discuss this with Rush, like two level-headed, pragmatic adults, and they would resolve this between them. And then they could get back to saving every one of their people, together. 

Right. Good plan. 

"There was a good chance Telford knew where they were taking you," Young continued in a more or less collected voice. "He also implied that something was coming, something very bad. We needed that information, and he was not offering it up willingly." 

"Ah. So that's why I have aching bones in my own body as well then, I suppose," said Rush wryly. 

Young looked away from the man whose body he fought with, whose body he killed. "He attacked me when I provoked him," he admitted quietly. "Then Greer went a bit overboard." 

"Of course he did, he could deal with his two favourite people at once!" Rush exclaimed bitterly. 

Young ruthlessly suppressed the guilt that suddenly almost overwhelmed him. He had no business feeling it. He had done everything in the way that he was supposed to. What happened to Rush was not his doing, and definitely was not something he would wish on anyone. If he could have taken Rush's place, he would have. But he couldn't. Not once he switched with Telford anyway, and when he had offered to go, Rush had insisted that it should be him. Still, Young couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had happened to the other man, in a twisted way, he was responsible for it. 

But he wasn't, was he? Yes, alright, he was responsible for the man, but he was also responsible for everyone on this ship. He also had a responsibility to Stargate Command, to all those people back on Earth, or elsewhere in the Galaxy. Who knew how many of their people were compromised, thanks to David? 

In light of everything, it was the right call. He just hoped Rush would be able to see it too. 

He got his thought in order and continued to explain to Rush what happened. "Once it was clear Telford wouldn't tell us anything, General O'Neill authorized..." he trailed off, not knowing what was the most delicate way of telling someone they'd been killed. If there was one. 

"What?" Rush asked impatiently. 

"In order for the brain to reset after the brainwashing we suspected Telford had been subjected to, we had to... kill him," finished Young lamely. 

Rush looked at him unseeingly, shook his head, then simply sat down on the nearest crate. Young continued in a quiet voice, trying to get it over with as soon as possible. "We vented the atmosphere in the room he was locked in. He did not give in. Once he stopped breathing, and the sixty seconds were up, I resuscitated him. The first thing he said when he came to was that the Alliance was coming to Destiny." 

Rush, with his elbows on his knees, was still staring at the floor, unmoving. Young went on with an acute sense of pointlessness. 

"We didn't know how close they'd come to dialing Destiny..." 

"All they needed to dial was me to bloody solve it for them!" Rush burst out fiercely. 

"Rush..." 

"I tried to stall for time, waiting for you to get me back here, but nothing happened. She had one scientist bloody killed right before me because I told her the work was sloppy! What the fucking hell was I supposed to do? Wait until she fucking tortured me some more before finally killing me?!” he demanded. "Oh no, excuse me, it wouldn't have been her, because she promised she wouldn't. It would have been another fucking psychopath!" 

"Once they knew who you were, you didn’t stand a chance. They would have made you help them, one way or another," Young said quietly. 

"Oh, believe me, I knew it by that point," sneered Rush. 

"I was supposed to go, Rush. You insisted that it should be you," ventured Young carefully. 

"Oh, of course. And that makes everything alright, does it? It's all my fault, nobody else had anything to do with this!" 

Young had had enough of this. "Are you kidding me? You want to blame me for doing what you asked me to do? We have no time for this!" 

He took a deep breath, then walked away from Rush as far as he could in the tiny, enclosed space they were in. He couldn't afford to lose his temper. And he couldn't afford not to have Rush and his capabilities at his disposal, not now. He needed the scientist to work with him, to figure a way out of this situation they had got themselves into. 

He turned back to Rush just in time to see him open his mouth. 

"So how did it feel? Actually killing me the second time?" Rush looked at him, with a maniacal grin distorting his face. 

Young shook his head firmly at him, warning the other man. "Don't." 

"Come on, don't tell me you didn't feel some satisfaction at seeing me suffocate! It's not a pretty death." 

"Stop it, Rush. You don't want to go there." Young tried to ignore the memory bursting into his mind suddenly, the memory of Rush's body on the floor, gasping for the air that wasn't there anymore. It felt like it was the hardest sixty seconds of his life, waiting for it to be over, waiting to be able to save him. Save them. 

Rush smiled at him mockingly. "Well, I suppose being suffocated is still more enjoyable than being electrocuted repeatedly, so really, what do I care about a little dying?" 

Young was staring at him, barely comprehending anything about the turmoil he felt. He wanted to shut down, and to reboot without all this mess, without all this... pain. Maybe then he could get back in control of the situation. He really didn't need Rush's particular brand of crazy after the countless hours he had spent waiting out David, trying to convince him to confess. Then killing him, when it wasn't certain he would be able to revive him again. 

"This is not going to help us with..." he started to say, but of course Rush was on a roll by then. 

"You knew exactly what they were doing to me, yet you didn't bring me back. You sentenced me to the same torture you suffered!" 

"I had no idea what was happening to you! And let's not forget that you volunteered for this!" 

"I didn't volunteer to get tortured! You knew my cover had been blown! I didn't sign up to be a spy!" 

"That's exactly what you signed up for, Rush! I warned you that you would have no backup!" 

"And you really thought that I could fool the whole bloody Lucian Alliance? Me? A fucking professor?" demanded Rush with a condescending face. 

"Well, it’s not like I haven’t seen you lie yourself out of a sticky situation before!" 

"Please! You were probably just happy you didn't have to go near them!" 

Young found himself inches away from Rush in a heartbeat. "You bastard. Don't you dare imply that I enjoyed a second of this! Do you think it was easy leaving you there? You think I enjoyed making that choice? Well, you're wrong. Why the hell do you think I keep avoiding these so called 'hard decisions' when I can?" 

"Oh, that's classic! I cannot even blame you for this, as apparently you only did what I've been telling you to do all along, is that it?" 

"Blame the Alliance, and come up with a plan!" 

"Oh, of course, I'll just forget the agony of being tortured senseless, shall I? 

Young took a deep breath. "Neither of us is rational about this, Rush. We have to stop arguing and get this thing done," he said a little desperately. "We have to solve this." 

"And how do you propose we do that?" 

"You come up with a plan, and if I deem the loss acceptable," Young sneered derisively, "then we're doing it." 

"Right. Stop arguing, okay. Done. What else do you require, Colonel?" asked Rush with a misleading flourish of his hand. "How about one of those mission reports everyone is so keen on submitting to you, even out here in the middle of fucking nowhere? That should be impersonal enough for you, right?" 

Young was trembling with rage, yet he kept himself from physically shutting the other man up. Rush needed to vent his anger at someone, and Young was the perfect candidate. He just had to hold on until Rush ran out of steam. He could do it, as long as it helped Rush get them out of this mess. 

"So apparently I didn't know the secret code word, so they instantly realised I was not Telford. They took me to a ship, Goa'uld, based on the designs, at least from what I could see of it from writhing on the fucking floor, screaming my lu... 

Young suddenly found himself grabbing Rush's shirts and pinning the other man to the wall. "Stop talking," he growled at him. 

"You were the one doing the torture!" Screamed Rush, twisting his own hands in Young's uniform, and trying to shake himself out of Young's grasp. 

"Shut up!" 

"It's because we're not friends," Rush sneered the last word "isn't it? I didn't stand in line with your good little soldiers as much as you would have liked, so I was less important than the man who betrayed you, and everyone on this ship! I'd bet that Telford was the one who gave up your location to the LA when Carwell died!" 

Young threw him to the ground, and backed away from him, trembling, until his back hit the wall. 

"That's it, isn't it? You wanted to know if it had been him who betrayed you, didn't you?" Rush asked him incredulously, apparently only now coming to this conclusion, but evidently already deciding he was right. 

Young didn't try to deny it. Part of him burned to know if it was his one time friend who sold them out, and who decided that all those lives were worth nothing to him. And if it was him, whether he did it willingly, or was coerced. But he stamped down hard on that part, and he did everything in his power not to stray into too personal waters. And now, Rush had the nerve to accuse him of leaving him in the hands of the LA because Young had a personal vendetta against Telford. The man could be so damn irrational sometimes, that Young had the urge to beat some sense into him. 

"This had nothing to do with you, Rush. No matter what our disagreements might be, I did not choose to put you through all that because it was you there. It wasn't personal. Now, how about you apply your famous pragmatism and you get over it? We have to figure out what to do about the LA." 

Rush was sprawled out on the floor, looking up indignantly at Young. Young looked back at him unblinkingly. He could try to argue, again, what his reasons were for doing what he'd done, but it was probably futile. What Rush must have gone through was very traumatic - and it was far too soon for him to be rational about it. He might never be rational about it, Young didn't know. But he didn't really care at this point either. He had bigger things to worry about, and frankly, so did Rush. 

Finally, Young turned away from the unforgiving eyes. They weren't judging him, he didn't even merit that treatment. Clearly, he was not worth any more of Rush's valuable time. Which was fine. Rush needed to get back to figuring out how to get the ship back anyway. 

He considered saying something, but anything that came to mind seemed too meaningless. The scientist volunteered to go undercover because he believed that Destiny, the single most important thing in his life was in danger. Then after being discovered, he was apparently tortured, then made to help the LA with coming to Destiny and taking her away from him. He was forced to give up Destiny, while his own body was beaten and killed by the people who were supposed to protect him. So really, it was no wonder he was so angry. The man was traumatized. As far as Rush was concerned, he had been left there, forgotten, in the hands of the enemy, and while it was not the whole story at all, Young could see why Rush blamed him for it. 

There was no point prolonging this conversation any longer. He tried to find something appropriate to say. If making him understand the whole picture was so impossible, then at least something that would convey his regret about what happened to Rush on a personal level. 

"We needed the intel, Rush," he said quietly. 

Rush smiled bitterly. "Yeah. But you should have disconnected the stones the moment you had it." 

"I know." 

"Or vented the atmosphere in the gate room." 

"You can blame me all you want, I don't care. Just figure out how to get them off the ship." Young said hoarsely, then turned on his heels and marched out of the room.

  

***

 

Rush let gravity pull him down onto the bed as soon as it was within falling distance. 

It was over. They had won. Destiny was safe again. 

He didn't feel any great sense of accomplishment though, only a bone deep tiredness. The whole thing had lasted much longer than it should have, and took far too many victims. He wondered if he could have done something different in order to prevent this, to prevent them coming, but anything that came to mind at the time would have involved far too many risks. Risks he was not willing to take. He was sure though, that Young could have done something to stop this whole thing from escalating to this level. 

People died. Their people. And it seemed like Young just froze in the middle of the fucking crisis. He had no original ideas, he only reacted to the events as they came. What kind of a leader does that? He let that crazy, psychotic woman have control of the situation. It was awful to watch, really, how everything went downhill so quickly. 

Clearly Young was not equipped to deal with this. Whatever else had happened to him that prevented him from acting like a bloody colonel of the USAF besides that traumatic event when Carwell died had apparently left him too insecure in his own abilities. He was bloody useless, it was almost painful to watch. Unfortunately Rush didn't have time for sympathy in the middle of the crisis. Nor any inclination to offer it to Young of all people, after what happened to him. 

Of course Young had the perfect explanation for that too: he had left Rush in Telford's body in order to get the intel that could save who knows how many people. It was for the greater good. 

The irony of it was not lost on him. 

He would think twice about it the next time he offered to help them out. 

Oh, who was he kidding? If Destiny was in danger again, and he was in a better position than anyone else to try to protect her, of course he would volunteer to do it. No one else understood the significance of being here, no one else would care to protect her like _he_ did. 

Not that he succeeded in it very well. 

It certainly didn't fill him with confidence, knowing that Young considered him less important than he had led Rush to believe during the previous weeks. It felt like betrayal. His head was swimming with thoughts of the recent events, it was so full that he felt it was useless trying to process everything now. He could vaguely make out regret, and hurt, and desolation. He didn't know how he felt about the past days. He had had a bloody headache for forever. He just wanted to get some sleep. He couldn't wait for mindless oblivion to finally claim him. 

As he curled up on his side he considered what he should do about Young. 

Whoever cleared him for active duty after that particular incident with Carwell was clearly a moron. Either that, or Young was a very good liar. Ordinarily he wouldn't give a shit, but in this case, the whole crew depended on Young. If he was a ticking time bomb, that could prove to be problematic. 

In any case, recent events had proved that Young was not fit to be in command. Unfortunately, attempting to remove him would be as futile as trying to turn Destiny back towards Earth. He wasn't going to try again, thank you very much. Even if Young could be removed, who would take his place? Lt. Scott was far too inexperienced to deal with the demands of a command position, so it was unclear which of them was the better option. He had no particular desire to work with either of them, to be frank.

Well, he would have to see if Young could scrape himself back together, but to be honest, fat lot of good he was if they couldn't depend on him in danger. 

He tried to think about nothing. Of course, that was a doomed plan. How the hell was one supposed to think about nothing, when one's head was so crammed it was constantly in danger of flashing a "memory full" sign? 

Oh, fuck this. He would just calculate the possibility of there being another Icarus-type planet back in the Milk Way, and Earth finding it sooner than the LA. That should keep his brain occupied enough so that it shut down everything else swirling in there. Shut down enough so he would be able to fall asleep. 

That was the plan anyway.

 


	7. Malice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missing scene from Malice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, many thanks to Potboy for the beta work and all the great advice!

Young was running. Unable to bear the wait any longer, he changed into his workout clothes and took off to the lowest habitable level of the ship to run around in mindless circles. 

Scott had reported about an hour ago that both Kino control signals were coming from the same spot, and they were approaching the gate. Which meant that one of the people who were stranded there was dead. He either had an alive lead scientist and dead psychopathic LA member, or... or. He didn't really want to think about the other possibility.

So he took off running. He used to do his best thinking during various training sessions on Earth. The physical exercise helped calm down the part of his brain that was always worrying and let him do some productive thinking. Which was much needed now.

Young had been continuously updating his mental list of pros and cons for the past several hours. It wasn't a real pros and cons list, but he didn't have another catchy name for it, so for lack of a better phrase, he went with this. Maybe he could call it the "what am I going to do with Rush?" list. That list had been a frequently mutating thing ever since he had known the man, but he had to come up with a working solution soon, because otherwise he might just as well lock the man up and let the next crisis kill them all. 

So, the list.

Point number one.

Rush was on a rampage to kill an unstable LA member who had murdered Dr. Perry, someone whom Rush apparently cared about, a lot. Aside from the fact that Rush was periodically showing signs of being borderline unstable too, the odds of his success were... not good. But still, however disturbed the man was, he was still a genius, so Young made himself believe he would somehow outsmart Simeon and come out of this alive. 

Point number two.

Dr. Perry had died as a direct consequence of Rush being a manipulative bastard, again. Putting aside the fact that Ginn was the target, Dr. Perry wouldn't have been on Destiny were it not for Rush wanting so desperately to keep the bridge hidden. So, while Ginn and Dr. Perry dying was tragic, and while Rush had nothing to do with their death himself, he was responsible for the latter's fate. Dr. Perry's murder would most likely haunt the scientist if he survived his encounter with Simeon. 

In fact, Dr. Perry's murder was the reason why Rush was on a hunt on that planet, why he had let Destiny jump away, not knowing if it would ever come back for him. Not caring about his life's purpose. Which was pretty telling about what state Rush was in. 

Point number three.

Rush had kept the bridge hidden from everyone _for weeks_. He had discovered the means to control Destiny - at least to an extent - and he had kept it to himself. Why? Because he didn't trust Young. Why? Because it was glaringly obvious to him that even Young didn't have faith in Young. Why? Because Young had messed up big time, not once, but multiple times, and his mental state was a rapidly escalating train wreck. 

Alright, Rush couldn't know that, but he might have used his famous deductive skills to come to this conclusion, and in light of recent events, he was not exactly wrong. Bottom line: Rush didn't trust him. 

Still, the man could have considered the possibility of revealing the bridge and the mission to Young as a means to help him come out of his depression. Even after the whole simulation mess and his consequent breakdown, Young didn't have the motivation to do anything really. Now however, it was different. 

He would get back to his own problems later, now he had a list to complete. 

Point number four: Riley.

Young had told the small bunch of people on the bridge hours ago that he didn't think Rush had intended for Riley to die. _Of course Rush never intends anyone to die,_ Young thought, _it's just... It keeps happening. Whenever he makes a bad decision._ _Whenever he isn't open with me._ He realised that he unconsciously picked up his pace and he was almost sprinting. He forced himself to slow down to a less punishing speed.

Rush clearly regretted what had happened to Riley, which still didn't excuse his careless decision about the lives of everyone on that shuttle. Scott had told him that Rush had warned them about the turbulence, so he must have known that something could go wrong. Presumably he deemed the risks less significant than the possibility of replenishing their supplies, Young didn't know. Bottom line, he had made a bad choice, and Riley was dead. And they had lost their only shuttle. 

Then again, it was easy to make a judgment after knowing the consequences of the man's decision. Young doubted _he_ would have authorized the mission while knowing about the danger, but who's to say they would have made it to the next planet alive, without leaving all those Lucian Alliance people there on that planet?

Point number five.

He couldn't ignore the fact that Rush had a good reason not to trust him. After the whole LA incident, after... everything, Young had found it hard to give a damn about anything. He _knew_ Rush had been hiding something - only a fool wouldn't have noticed - yet Young hadn't done anything to find out what. He could have followed Rush on any occasion when the man sneaked off somewhere. He could have had Eli spy on him with a Kino again. He could have done any number of things, he just hadn't bothered, because he was too busy not giving a shit about anything, and blaming himself for the whole incident with the Alliance and for its consequences, and trying to hold himself together. So, as much as he would have liked to blame everything on the scientist, he couldn't. 

In the long run, they wouldn't gain much by dissecting their past mistakes. And if Rush was sincere about being honest with him, about everything, then they could finally develop some kind of a functioning working relationship, the kind where he wouldn't have to doubt every single thing that came out of the scientist's mouth. It was pretty hard, making decisions while a voice in the back of his head kept cautioning him about Rush's sincerity. Or lack thereof. 

Point whatever: Rush had saved him.

Alright, Rush was the one who had caused the situation in the first place with not telling them about the bridge, but still, he didn't have to save Young. He could have let Young spin away from Destiny, never to be reached again. To die. To be abandoned. He didn't. The feeling of spinning away from the ship even for one second was utterly terrifying. Young had felt so helpless in that moment, like when he was paralyzed for a short while when they had come to Destiny. The relief that flooded him when he clutched Rush's hand was profound. 

It was not such a remarkable act, really, especially out here, it was the most natural thing to save someone from certain death. Anyone would do it. But Young felt that with Rush, he shouldn't dismiss the act so easily. Rush obviously didn't want anyone to die, Young just usually forgot this whenever one of the guy's awful decisions bit them in the arse and left them worse off than before. 

Point 42: Destiny's Mission.

If what Rush was telling him back on that ship was true, then that was... intriguing. Very intriguing. A sign that there was some kind of... what, intelligent life before everything? Some kind of an entity? Present at the very beginning of the universe? 

That was huge, incredibly huge... and if Young was honest, a little scary. Rush was the last person who would believe in something so inexplicable by science, so that could only mean he was telling the truth about this mysterious sign, hidden deep in the cosmic background radiation. 

Young felt, for the first time in a very long while, the almost forgotten drive of curiosity. The desire to explore the unknown, to learn about something this big, filled him with excitement. Filled him with an eagerness to do it right now. He felt more alive than he ever had since they'd come to Destiny.

So, apparently, they had a purpose. Rush's borderline obsessive infatuation with the importance of the ship and its journey during the early days seemed much less crazy in light of all this. 

Unfortunately all this new information didn't change Young's job that much. His main

task was still the same: to get these people home. Of course since there was no way of doing that at the moment, as far as he knew, the next best thing was going along with the ride on Destiny while trying to keep everyone alive.

Young couldn't deny that he was intrigued. A bunch of ill equipped and unprepared people from a small planet incredibly far away had managed to board this ship, which was launched thousands of years ago to solve a great mystery. It was... humbling in a way.

So, not only the ship had a purpose, it seemed like Young had one too. He had no reason to want to return to Earth himself. He hadn't had one for a long time now, and for lack of anything better to do, he had been drifting along aimlessly with the ship.

Only it was not aimless now. Young was curious, and if it was up to him, they would see through this mission. Like Rush said, they were here, why shouldn't they complete it? It was a huge privilege, to be able to be a part of something of this magnitude, and he was almost proud of being here.

He still remembered the first time he set foot on another planet, years ago. The rush of adrenaline as he stepped through the gate, as he materialized who knows how many light years away from Earth. As he took his first breath of the alien air. He remembered that he couldn't keep comparing what he saw to Earth. He even wondered for a second if it was all real, or if it was just a big scam, designed specifically as an initiation for the rookies. He was just a lieutenant back then. 

It was amazing how quickly he had gotten used to it all, and how quickly he had reduced the time spent on admiring the alien worlds to mere seconds before switching back to lieutenant, and later, captain mode. Thinking back, he couldn't help but regret that he let the wonder fade away so quickly especially since this was the reason that he joined Stargate Command in the first place. When he was offered the opportunity, it was like a dream come true. The possibility of being part of the select few who get to protect Earth from alien threat, and who get to travel to alien worlds was incredibly wonderful. He could be the first line of defense. He could be the first to explore the next unknown planet. 

And now, he might be able to do that again, at least to some extent. 

He slowed down to a walk. 

Well, this had been useful. He had worked up a good sweat, and he felt like he had all the necessary information he needed now. He would still have to organise the list, and have a talk with Rush if... when he was back, but otherwise, he had a plan. Now, how to go about applying it was a different matter, and required another running session. 

This was good, having a plan. Having a purpose again.

 

*

 

When the radio call came, telling him that Rush was back at the gate, Young was in his quarters, writing up the report of the incident. The second his radio crackled, he marched out of his room in the direction of the gate with purposeful steps. 

Rush was back. Rush was alive and he was back. Which meant that he must have killed Simeon. Most likely without getting any information about the upcoming attack on Earth out of him, too. 

He heard the commotion that usually accompanied any gate travelfrom the corridor. When he entered the gate room James was already through. He was at the stairs when Scott stepped out of the shining puddle with Rush at his side. 

Young stopped to watch them for a moment, taking everything in. The contrast between Rush and Scott was glaringly obvious. Rush was covered with dust or with sand, he didn't know, but compared to him, Scott's rather used uniform looked almost brand new. The scientist looked like he was seconds away from collapsing, and the sudden image of him shouting at Young in this very same room months ago startled him. 

Young stepped up to Rush and reached out to take his arm. He nodded at Scott before he led Rush away towards the corridor. 

"Are you OK?" he asked quietly, as soon as they were outside of hearing distance. 

Rush didn't look at him as he nodded. 

Young wanted to shake him. 

"Did you get anything out of him about the attack on Earth?" he demanded maybe a tad too aggressively as he walked out of the room with his hand still clutched around Rush's arm, leading him away from the others. 

Rush shook his head and tried to pick up his pace slightly. Young held him back and pulled him into a supply room off the corridor. 

"Sit," he said curtly, pointing at the nearest crate. 

Rush finally looked at him. His face was desolate. 

Fuck, what the hell was he thinking? The man was exhausted, had just probably killed someone, had lost a person very close to him, and had who knows how many other mental and physical problems. Young really should let him get some sleep. 

He sighed, and relented. This interrogation could wait. 

"Alright. Here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna go and take a shower and sleep for at least eight hours straight, in whichever order you want. Then you're going to come to my quarters and tell me everything that happened on the planet. But before you go, I need to know what happened between you and Simeon, just in one sentence. I need to make a report to Earth." 

Rush blinked at him slowly, and Young could see him preparing to talk, but the whole motion was so slow compared to Rush's usual speed that it was almost painful to watch him struggle. 

When his voice came, it was hoarse and weak. "I made a horde of herbivores run over him. Then as he lay there on the ground, broken and bloodied, I shot him." 

Well. That was... unexpected. And fucking ingenious. And only created more questions than it answered. Perfect. Young nodded anyway. Well, if Rush didn't have any information about the attack, he could delay his debriefing until the next day. 

"Alright. Come on, I'll take you to your quarters or you're gonna fall asleep standing up." 

Rush came obediently, with disturbingly rag-doll like motions. They walked towards the scientist's quarters side by side, with Young peeking at the other man periodically. He didn't seem hurt physically, there was just a bitter resignation radiating from him. He looked pitiful, and Young had the unexpected urge to hug him. 

Right. That would turn out well. Although in Rush's current state, there was a good chance that he could get away with it before the other man realized what was happening and head butted him again. That was far more likely an outcome than any kind of reciprocation. He'd probably do more damage than good with the gesture. 

He almost stumbled at the uninvited memory of him enveloping the scientist in his arms in the infirmary, all those weeks ago, when Rush was hallucinating the aliens that had held him captive. He remembered how good it felt, giving comfort, protecting him from his demons. He suppressed the feeling of longing just as soon as he realised what it was. This was really not the time to fall victim to his need of human contact. And Rush was definitely not the right person to do it with either. 

He doubted Rush would welcome any kind of comfort from him anyway. 

As they reached Rush's quarters, Young found himself wondering if he should really leave the scientist alone. He was clearly not okay, and as Scott said, he'd already had some kind of a meltdown on the planet. 

Young knew he would be unwelcome though. 

He knew all too well what it was like, being plagued by guilt, and regret. He was in the perfect position to offer help and sympathy to the other man, with his experience with coping with this. Or maybe not, seeing as he hadn't really coped with it all that well. And that's the thing, really, maybe he would have fared better if he had had some help.

Well, he would never know. 

As Young watched Rush press the door control panel, he found himself feeling glad. Glad that he was back. That he was alive. Rush was many things, but he was tough, maybe one of the toughest people Young knew. Rush would get through this, Young was sure of it. 

Still, he would have to keep a close eye on the scientist. It would be practical, really, he could also make sure the man was being sincere about his complete cooperation from now on.

  

*

 

The next morning Rush found him in his quarters. He sat down on the edge of the couch, probably waiting for Young to interrogate him. He looked better than ten hours ago, but still emanated an air of tiredness and desolation. 

Young stacked the papers in one pile on his table and walked over to the other couch. Rush was drumming his fingers on his knees, and kept looking at the wall behind Young. Even as he sat down and positioned his head in Rush's direct line of sight, the man just moved his gaze to the right of Young's face. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" ventured Young carefully. 

"That's why I'm here, aren't I?" Rush shot back almost immediately. 

"No, I meant..." Young took a deep breath. What the hell was he doing? "I meant about Dr. Perry." 

Rush finally glanced at him. Young wished he didn't. The empty, haunted eyes made him want to look away. 

"Not particularly." 

Good. Young wouldn't have any idea what to say to the scientist anyway. Not about this. 

"Fine. I'll talk then," he said instead. "I get it. Why you didn't tell me about the bridge. It was the wrong call, but I do get it. You were not on your best form, you felt you couldn't trust me." 

Rush blinked, but didn't say anything. 

"Even if I don't know what you thought I would have done with the information. Did you think I would have banned you from the bridge, or what?" Young tried to stop himself from getting angry, and to stop the slight feeling of hurt and betrayal creep in. He breathed in Destiny's stale air. It was unusually calming. "Anyway I get it. Sort of." 

"Great." 

"But that doesn't mean that you're off the hook. I expect you to be true to your word about working with me this time." 

"I meant what I said. I'll tell you everything." 

"Good," nodded Young. "Just one more thing: why did you suddenly decide that I could do my job after all?" 

"Well, you didn't kill me, for a start." 

"Yeah. That wasn't very smart by the way, trying to hide the bridge even when we were stuck on an alien ship, drifting away from Destiny. It was bound to come out anyway, you had to realise that." 

"Yes, well. It seems like I underestimated my science team." 

"They knew you were hiding something long before this." 

Rush was clearly getting annoyed. "Is this why I'm here? To explain again why I kept the bridge a secret?" 

Young breathed in deeply once. And again. "No. I just wanted to clear some stuff before we moved on." 

"Hmmm." 

"So. On the planet." 

"Yes." Rush cleared his throat before continuing. "I suppose you know what happened until Sergeant Greer got shot." 

"Yes. You took off after Simeon, despite Scott's warning." 

"Well, he was going to escape otherwise. Scott didn't need my help with Greer, so yes, I went after him." 

"And?" 

"And what? I caught up to him and managed to fool him into thinking he had the upper hand, and when he was in position, I detonated a rock near a horde of giant herbivores who panicked and ran over him. End of story." 

"How did you distract him?" 

Rush looked away for a second before fixing his gaze at Young. "I shot at him." 

"And you missed?" 

"I only had a pistol. And he was far away." 

"Right. 

"He turned around and started to shoot at me." 

"I suppose you had the sense take cover." 

Rush remained silent. Fantastic. 

"Then what happened? You detonated the C4?" 

"Yes. He was injured on his leg, so even if he'd tried, he wouldn't have been able to get away. Not in time."

"And they stampeded over him."

"Yes." 

"He survived?" 

Rush took his time answering. "Yes." 

"So you, what, went there to check, and when you saw he was still breathing, you shot him?" 

No answer. 

"Rush." 

"No. He said... he said he had information." 

"And?" 

"Then I shot him."

Young stared at him, but the laugh that pretty much conveyed the ' _you're unbelievable_ ' thought that inevitably surfaced in his mind was unstoppable.

"Right. So let me get this straight. You outsmarted a psychopath into being helpless and at your mercy, and you didn't think to try to get the information out of him?"

"Of course I thought about it! There was no guarantee he would tell the truth! He might have given us information that led our people to a trap, but they would have been obliged to check it anyway. That is, if he would have told me anything at all. That was his only bargaining chip, I'm certain he wouldn't have volunteered any information without me helping him in return." 

Young considered what Rush said. He had come to basically the same conclusion during the night, while he was trying to think up a diplomatic explanation to the events that he could sell to Homeworld Command. Rush did have a point, but he could have at least tried. On the other hand, he was not a soldier, he was not trained for something like this. Simeon could have led him on with the promised information for who knows how long, and it would have been impossible for the scientist to get Simeon back to the gate, all alone, injured as he was. And Rush presumably didn't want to waste any more time on the other man. 

It was just a giant mess, this whole thing.

"You could have at least tried," he said at last. 

Rush looked down on the floor, like he was waiting to be punished. 

"Alright." He stood up to stretch his legs a bit, and to shake the disturbing urge to hug the man. Again. "Alright. I'm not saying you were wrong, but I'm definitely not saying you were right either." 

"Then what _are_ you saying?" Rush snapped impatiently. 

"I'm saying that I understand why you did it. Why you shot him." 

Rush blinked at him. Then he blinked again. Between the blinks he just gazed at Young, clearly expecting him to add something else to this. 

Young cleared his throat, getting slightly uncomfortable from the other man's relentless stare. "I'll try to explain everything to Homeworld Command, but you might have to come back to Earth with me to clear up some of the confusion." That got Rush out of his dumbstruck state. 

"I don't see why, I've told you everything."

"I meant about the mission. Destiny's mission. That sign you found? I'm sure they'd be very interested to hear about that." 

"Oh. Right, of course." 

"Did you have breakfast?" 

Rush was slow to reply, like he was still not up to his usual speed of processing. "No, I was about to go after coming here." 

"Ah, so that's what I kept hearing." 

"What?" 

"Your stomach complaining," clarified Young with a slight smile. 

Rush frowned and looked down at said organ with an accusing stare. Young chuckled. 

"Come on, let's go. It wouldn't hurt if the crew saw us together, talking again, after everything." 

"Well, it's not like we ever eat together," grumbled Rush more to himself than Young. 

"Clearly. You can try using that excuse if someone asks why you didn't tell us about the bridge." Young said pointedly. 

That shut Rush up pretty quick. He stood up from the couch slowly, very slowly, and closed his eyes for a second. Dizzy, was he? His blood sugar level must be somewhere in the basement. The man had no common sense sometimes. 

As they made their way to the mess hall, Young decided that he would keep a close eye on the man for the next couple of days, to make sure he was coping, and to see if he was really being sincere and not back to his secretive self. He might have to get Eli to put a Kino on Rush's math corridor. Although, no. There was no point doing that. He should rather have the boy check what Rush was working on in there, that would make more sense. Maybe when Rush was on the bridge?

Maybe not. He felt like he should give the man a chance. On the other hand, giving him a chance might cost someone else to lose their life, so maybe he could do that once he had restored some of his faith in the scientist. 

Rush was sometimes a crazy bastard, who made too many wrong decisions, some of them while knowing it was most likely dangerous to others. Even if he seemed to regret the consequences of his decisions afterwards, there was no guarantee he wouldn't do the same thing again if the circumstances demanded it, or if he could justify it with his merciless logic. 

He was back to the never-ending question of what was he going to do about Rush. 

For some strange reason, he did think that Rush was being sincere about wanting to work with him. Still, the whole crew depended on Young's ability to make the right decision, so he would play it cautiously until he was sure he was right. In the meantime, he could _believe_ whatever he wanted about the other man, and he wanted to trust him this time. Albeit with a generous amount of skepticism, at least for now.

 


	8. Twin Destinies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missing scene from Twin Destinies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the longer wait! As always, many thanks to Potboy for the beta work and all the great advice!

Twin Destinies

 

The corridor was eerily quiet, no other sound could be heard apart from chalk-lines being drawn on metal. The wall was almost completely covered with white by the time Rush calmed down enough to stop. By the time he was certain he had taken every possibility into account. 

He had started to run a real time monitoring program on the star's solar activity right after Young had cancelled the dialing attempt, thanks to the warning of his other self. The program was supposed to analyze the solar flares on the route that Destiny would have taken through the star - their duration, their intensity - and he hoped he would be able to tell where the alternate crew dialed to based on the results. 

_When_ they dialed to - that was a different question. He might be able to give a rough estimate for that too, but what was the point? To be honest, being able to tell where they dialed to wasn't much better either, as it wasn't certain at all that they had stayed on that planet. He could probably try to guess where they went to from there, but if there were too many options, it was statistically... not impossible, but rather unlikely to give definitive results. So in short, hopeless.

There was really no point in doing this. Still, it kept him occupied for a while, just until he felt that he was in a more rational state of mind. He had to be, if he wanted to have any hope to successfully deal with this. 

Hah. Deal with what exactly? Watching, no, _helping_ his other self to die? And Rush was pretty sure he died, he highly doubted the man had managed to ascend, with the state that he had been in. Maybe he hadn't even tried. 

Bloody Telford. The man was a thorn is his side even dead. Well, one copy of him dead. He would bet his only remaining pair of hole-less socks that Telford provoked the other Rush into an argument, accused him of having sabotaged the dialing attempt. It wasn't that hard to guess really, Rush wouldn't have wanted to get into a fight with _that_ Colonel either if it could be avoided, so the only other explanation was this. 

So he came here to do some turmoil-calming calculations, because he was upset. He also felt a little guilty, but he was not entirely certain about what.

Ridiculous. Bloody useless, that's what all this was. He threw the miniature piece of chalk to the ground and tried to reach his aching neck with his right hand to massage it. 

He helped Rush #2 to off himself. After what his other self went through and after what he had done - however unintentionally - there was no other way. This was how it was supposed to happen. And the man had asked for his help! Rush didn't make him do anything, it was his idea! 

Oh, but he knew perfectly well what #2 was going to do, didn't he? He knew it the second he saw Telford's body lying there. 

Fuck, he couldn't... he couldn't think about this. 

Why was he beating himself up anyway? What happened to the other crew was not on him, and what happened to Telford was not on him either. What happened to Rush #2... well, that might be somewhat on him, but he refused to regret that part. 

No amount of self-recrimination would change anything. And regarding Telford - well, Rush couldn't be held accountable for something that his other self had done. Still, as he imagined Telford's accusatory tone baiting him, he couldn't help but feel responsible for what happened to the other crew.

Point of fact, based on the information that he was given, he was certain that the other Rush had done everything he could to save the others. And if there was something he didn't know about, that was not his fault, so he shouldn't be blaming himself for it.

It was perfectly possible that everything had happened the way the other Rush told them it had. 

But could he be sure? No, he fucking couldn't. He didn't have all the information to be perfectly, one hundred percent sure. And now he never would.

He didn't know. That was fucking why he couldn't stop with the bloody calculations, he _had to know_. 

The one thing he was certain about was that Rush#2 wouldn't have wanted to kill them. He wouldn't! If the connection was compromised, he would have done exactly what the other Rush said he had done. Such an essential part of himself couldn't have changed during those 20 minutes. Could it? 

And anyway, none of this would have happened if they had listened to _him_ , and not some college dropout (who wanted to go home to his mother), so if Young wanted to blame someone, he should blame himself for authorizing this. Or Telford, that bastard, for pushing this. Or Eli. Anyone, really, apart from Rush. He was the only one who was against this useless attempt in the first place. 

Of course, he shouldn't be surprised. Young couldn't believe him. Rush would have loved to put everything on the man but since he was being honest, he had to admit that the Colonel had every reason to doubt Rush after everything that happened since they had come to the ship. After everything that happened between _them_.

Fuck this anyway. He should be content. They had the spare parts necessary to repair the ship, they even collected some extra ones, as Brody told him. They would do the essential repairs in the next few days and then they would be on their merry way. 

Why couldn't he shake this feeling of restlessness then? Why couldn't he stop the calculations until now, when his fingers were dumb from all that writing? 

Why couldn't he get the image of his doppelganger out of his head? The utter desolation, the bitter resentment that radiated from him? 

Of course he knew why. The look was not an unfamiliar one, he had seen it for long months on his own face whenever he had happened to walk by a mirror. He had seen it on Gloria's face for even longer months before that. 

The man had lost everything that was important to him. He watched everyone abandon the ship, abandon him, and he had nothing else left to do but to wait for Destiny to die. Rush knew perfectly well what that would do to him, and being witness to the other Rush's misery left him feeling hollow inside. 

And then there was Young. Now there was a puzzle, if there ever was one. 

Young had looked very pissed off and accusing when Rush returned with Scott from the other Destiny - just as Rush had expected really. It wasn't an unfamiliar look on him per se, but Rush liked to think they'd moved past this and that he never had to experience an infuriated Young again. 

Now he felt like a kid who had done something wrong and was sulking in his corner, waiting to be punished. He turned in the direction of the corridor's entrance countless times already, fearing that every little creaking noise was Young coming to question him. 

Young hadn't shown so far, but Rush was pretty sure it was only a matter of time. Young must think Rush knew something about Telford's death, about his other self's part in it. After all, it was rather obvious, really, that the other Rush was involved somehow. Especially since he disappeared.

Well, he would not deny finding Rush#2, if Young asked. He promised Young that he would be honest with him, and he hadn't done anything wrong. Not about Telford anyway, and he seriously doubted that Young would care about him helping the other Rush to sit in the chair, and to... well. He would most likely thank him. What would he have done with two Rushes anyway? From his point of view, it must have been a relief, getting rid of the second one. 

Still, Young hadn't come to question him, not yet, and it had been almost eight hours since they'd jumped away from the other Destiny. Maybe this was his tactic, keeping Rush in suspense until he cracked and came to Young voluntarily? How very subtle. It was not gonna work. If Young wanted to know what happened so bad, he could make the first step and ask Rush. 

And of course, there was that other, tiny, insignificant thing about Young. That thing that Rush has been ignoring quite successfully up until now.

Young had wanted to stay on Destiny. Voluntarily. 

Rush tried to wrap his mind around this, but as of yet he couldn't. The man who had always made it a priority to return to Earth was willing to stay on the ship. It was such a bloody shock that at first he was sure it was just a ruse to get Rush to play along with the dialing attempt. Not that he could have done anything to sabotage it, Young had made sure of that. 

Rush#2 said that Young had been... how did he put it? He had been true to his word, and he had stood alongside Rush. So apparently the Colonel really did mean it, when he said he'd understood the importance of the mission. When he said that he would be one of the dozen people who would stay on board. 

Rush remembered the utter shock that hit him at hearing those words. He had been prepared for the worst, for having to convince Young to let him stay, he had been prepared to accept defeat and being dragged to certain death through the stargate against his will, or if they were very lucky, to Earth. He felt like something essential had changed between them in that moment. Like the foundation of how he viewed Young had been shattered and he had to reconstruct the whole image of the Colonel he had in his head, based on completely different qualities. 

He had to reevaluate a lot of things, and Young just happened to be the most important one of them. 

So apparently Young himself, personally, didn't have any reason to return to Earth. Not anymore. Rush was not up to date with the latest rumours concerning the man (or concerning anyone really), but it seemed like his marriage was over. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time he saw the Colonel's wedding ring glinting on his finger. It seemed like that was the only reason that Young himself had wanted to go back before. What did he say at the meeting? That he had a responsibility to the crew. So did that mean that he would happily stay if no one wanted to return to Earth? 

The sense of the potential loss hit Rush unexpectedly. For a moment he dared to imagine what it would be like, being here with a crew just as devoted as him, just as passionate about the mission, about all the discoveries that awaited them as he was. It would be incredible, and perfect and ... And Young would be _on his side_. They would do this _together_ , and they might even play chess, and... Well. There was no use thinking about that either. 

Thinking was overrated anyway. He should get something to eat instead, that was more practical. 

So he ignored all the bloody stuff he should probably deal with for the moment and locked them in the back of his head, to the place where he had been banishing quite a lot of things lately. No wonder he had a constant low-level headache.

He would have to reevaluate Young, that was certain, but not now. Rush would observe the other man first, see if he could possibly understand the importance of the mission, and if he could be persuaded to accept that they were not going home anytime soon, so he might as well act like he wanted to be here too. That might make the difference with the rest of the crew - if they saw their commander acting like he belonged here, like he _wanted_ to be here, then maybe they could finally become the crew Rush needed for the mission.

 

*

 

The mess hall was almost empty by the time Rush got there. He took his time selecting a suitably small bowl that wouldn't give the impression of wasting the little food they had, and turned to head towards his favourite corner. 

Of course it was already occupied. 

Apparently Young didn't have enough space in his quarters for all his papers and his laptop, and decided to take over the mess hall too. Never mind that he had the biggest and most luxurious rooms of them all. 

Without thinking about it too much, he walked to Young's corner and unceremoniously made space for his bowl on one side of the table, then plopped down with a soft sigh. God, but he was hungry. 

Young glanced up for a heartbeat, but almost immediately went back to typing on his computer. 

So that was how he wanted to play it. Fine. Rush started to slowly eat his atrocious dinner, but he couldn't help reading some of the writings on the papers. They seemed to be inventories of some sort. Maybe about the extra parts they'd collected from the other Destiny? But why would Young care about that? Brody was in charge of the repairs, so Young had no reason to doubt those numbers. 

Maybe he was bored? Or maybe he wanted to beat Rush up for what happened to Telford, and this was how he made himself stop, by doing something so mundane? 

Rush smiled wryly into his bowl. 

_'Or maybe you're just not worth his time,_ ' whispered a malicious little voice from the back of his head. He stamped down hard on the stab of something that felt suspiciously like hurt. He just couldn't catch a break, could he? Not even from his own traitorous unconscious? 

"James found a Kino on the other Destiny, in the gateroom," said Young out of the blue, making Rush almost drop his spoon. 

"Oh." Well, that was... fuck. Did that mean that they had a recording of what happened there? 

Oh, for fuck's sake, what was wrong with him? Of course it meant that. What else could it have _possibly_ meant? Did Young know something Rush didn't? Was that why he hasn't questioned him so far? Did he have proof that the other Rush had lied? 

No, that was impossible. Rush had been over this already a million times. He would have done the same thing that his doppelganger said he had done. He couldn't have lied about what happened in the gateroom, could he? Fuck, but the more he thought about it, the more he doubted. Why? Did he really not know himself as well as he would have liked to believe? 

Young's voice stopped his quickly mounting panic attack. "It's on my laptop, if you want to see it." 

Rush stared at him, but Young was still typing something on his computer, that was apparently too bloody important to stop even for a second. He didn't look at Rush, just sat there with a perfectly straight bloody spine, with his perfectly slicked back bloody hair and a still perfectly clean shaved bloody face. 

Rush had the urge to throw his food at him. 

So, it was going to be like this then. Young would not offer him even the slightest bit of hint about the recording. He was going to make Rush watch it and then probably blame him for everything. Fantastic. 

"You made a nice speech. The other you. Very... inspiring." 

What the hell was he talking about? Nice speech? Him? He didn't make any speech. 

"Although you might want to work on your delivery a bit. You know, rhetorics can make a big difference. You do have a feel for it though." 

Rush narrowed his eyes at him. "What do you mean?" 

"Nothing. I just think that if you had managed to learn to be a little more diplomatic, you could have easily taken over the ship by now," said Young as he finally looked at him, with a not very subtle smirk playing at the corner of his lips. He didn't look like he wanted to murder Rush, so at least there was that. 

Rush blinked at him a couple of times, feeling a little out of his depth. He wasn't really sure if Young's comment was intended as a snipe? or a joke, but for the sake of keeping the tentative peace, he went with the second. "Yes. Well, I was never one for sugarcoating things." 

Young outright snorted at that. "No kidding." 

He suddenly turned the laptop towards Rush and stood up. "I'm gonna get my ration from the still," he announced, and stalked out of the mess hall without waiting for a reaction. 

Well. That was unexpected, to say the least. Alright. So whatever was on the kino footage, it was either too embarrassing for Young or too embarrassing for Rush, or the combination of the too. Or maybe Young just wanted to give him some privacy to watch it? Or he just wanted some booze. 

Fuck this. When would this end? This uncertainty, this _need_ to analyze the man's every action? He's already had a headache, and if he couldn't get a read on Young, he suspected he would have one as a constant companion. 

Either way, he was fairly sure Young wouldn't have left him alone with his laptop if the other Rush was lying about what happened in the gate room. Which meant that he really should just calm down and watch the footage. 

Rush looked around the room to check if anyone was able to see the screen of the computer, but the only other occupants were in the other end of the room, playing footsie and feeding each other some sort of dried fruit pieces. Disgusting. 

Alright then. It couldn't be that bad, if Young had left him to it, right? No sense in prolonging this, the man would be back sooner or later, and he'd rather watch it alone. 

He pressed play, and leant as close to the screen as he could without bumping into it, keeping the volume down. 

It was a little disconcerting at first, to watch from an outside perspective as he and Young agreed on the absolute minimum number of people who needed to stay in order for the mission to continue. To watch the dumbstruck expression on his own face when he realised Young had planned to stay too. Weren't they standing a little too close to each other? Or was he just imagining things? Yes, it must be the angle of the video. 

His speech was... well, it could have been better, but it was the same speech he had prepared to give, so no surprises there. Now Young on the other hand... That was an eye-opener. It was short, but to the point. He should have expected it really, but the tightness in his chest still took him by surprise. 

So, Young understood after all. He really understood the importance of Destiny's mission, and wanted to stay. What's more, apparently he was not as uninterested in the 'discovering new stuff' aspect of the program as he had let on. After all their disagreements, after everything they've been through, he had to discover now that Young was not as much of a military ignoramus as Rush had believed him to be after all. What's more, it looked like he might even have some kind of an ally in Young. 

It looked like he was not alone. At least not so completely alone as he had felt since they got stranded here. It was an interesting feeling, a feeling that he has almost forgotten. Hope maybe? The tightness in his chest eased a little, and a gently warming feeling replaced it. It was disconcerting, to say the least. 

Any positive feelings he had evaporated the moment when Telford started talking. That _bastard_. No wonder his other self was pissed at the man. Bless Greer, he had his issues, but he also had his uses, and Rush definitely appreciated the man's no bullshit attitude towards Telford. 

He made a mental note about all the people who wanted to stay on board. He didn't know all of them by anything more than name, but maybe it was time he considered the possibility of there being more people with actual brains on Destiny than it seemed. 

Truth was, after all those months of being completely alone with the belief that being here, on Destiny was important, watching everyone trying so desperately get back to Earth while that was the last thing he wanted to do; the possibility of there ever being anyone who could appreciate what he had been trying to do took him by surprise.

Quite frankly, he had forgotten about the rest of the people on board. This glimmer of hope was dangerous, he couldn't help himself imagining a crew with devoted members, just as devoted as him. It would be like a dream come true. 

He watched as they'd established the connection as the recharging process started. He watched as Telford went through first, and as the wormhole became unstable right after he vanished in the blue puddle. He watched as the other Rush and Eli tried to stabilize the connection, and as the rest of the crew evacuated the ship in a panic when it was clear that it wasn't safe to stay on board any longer. 

He watched as the other him made even Young leave before he was left completely alone. For a moment it looked like the man would argue with him, but apparently for once he trusted Rush enough to do as he was told, and went with the rest of them. Good. They needed him. For all his faults, he doubted anyone else would be able to keep some semblance of order among them, if they indeed survived the journey. 

The kino hovered above the other Rush even after the connection was severed. Rush watched as #2 had lost it there, in front of the gate. As he had just sat there for long minutes, probably still in denial about the whole thing. He must have been devastated. 

Rush felt the earlier feeling of guilt returning full force. He could tell himself all he wanted that his doppelganger had asked for his help to sit in the bloody chair, and that Rush was just doing what was asked of him, but after seeing him like this, he understood. The man had already lost Destiny once, deciding to do it again must have come easy for him. 

It was on Rush. What he had believed was rational reasoning on #2's part at the time was just plain surrender. He should have tried to talk him out of it. It was his fault that the other _him_ had died. 

At the sound of faint footsteps approaching Rush jerked away from the screen that was frozen on the image of the stargate, with a pitiful little man sitting at the bottom of it. The next second Young sat down opposite him, and made space on the table for the two cups and the flask presumably filled with alcohol. He watched as the Colonel unhurriedly poured a small measure into each of the cups. As one was pushed towards Rush, he came out of his trance. He reached for the  cup and slowly took a sip. It burned. It was fucking perfect, just what he needed. 

"Do you think they survived? The rest of the crew?" asked Young after a couple of companionable sips. So, apparently that was his main concern too. 

"I don't know. It's possible," Rush replied nonchalantly, like he hadn't just spent hours trying to calculate the chances of their survival. 

"The wormhole looked stable when they went through." 

"Yes, it did. There's a good chance a stable connection was made, but to where and to when, that we cannot know." 

"So you think they went back in time, like you did. I mean, the other you." 

"That is the most likely explanation, yes. If they survived."

"I think they did." 

Rush looked at him, and took another sip of the burning liquid. "So, all you need is a video to tell you that the other me didn't lie. Good to know. I'll set up a Kino to follow me, shall I?" he said snidely. 

"Oh don't start. I was pretty sure you wouldn't have sent them through the gate if it was not safe, even before seeing the video." 

"It wasn't safe on Destiny either. Not at that point," countered Rush. 

"So you, or he, whatever, must have picked their best chance of survival. That's what you do. You're pragmatic." 

Rush looked down at the table's surface, that was already decorated with scratches made by the utensil they used. He could even make out some vague letters. Initials? What was this, high school?

"What? You don't think they made it?" asked Young after a minute of staring at Rush unwaveringly. 

Rush took a deep breath before answering. "There's no way to know. Not without having the exact parameters of the dialing, and the connection they had established. I cannot tell." 

"And that bugs you just as much as it bugs me, doesn't it?" asked Young with a tone that suggested Rush was a moron for trying to hide it from him. Fuck, when did he become this transparent to Young? Time to change the subject.

Rush cleared his throat. "It was rather informative. The video." 

"Yes it was," agreed Young after a pause too long to be anything but deliberate. "Although we probably didn't find the same things informative." 

Rush felt his lips curling up at one end. "I was thinking about the possibility of you promoting Greer. He has some... hidden qualities I've previously been unaware of," he said nonchalantly. 

Young snorted into his cup. "Yes, well. You can always rely on him if it comes to David." 

The use of the other man's first name took Rush by surprise. He didn't know why, it wasn't like he hadn't heard Young using it before. "What will happen to him back on Earth? To Colonel Telford, I mean?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"Well, he hadn't been back there since he'd been found out to have been a Lucian Alliance spy." 

"Oh, that. There will probably be an internal hearing about that," said Young while he glanced over at one of the papers in front of him. 

"That's it? An internal hearing, and he's back to work? Back to being our main contact to Earth?" asked Rush incredulously. 

Young glanced at him a bit surprised. "Most likely, yes. He was brainwashed, we know that now. He might be put under surveillance for a while, but probably not even that. He has the connections to get out of it." 

"Typical. I suppose you wouldn't have been that lucky in his place?"

"Probably not," confirmed Young quietly.

They sipped their drinks in silence. Rush felt the tension gradually mounting in him. Young was too bloody calm. Did he have nothing else to say about the video? About the fact that enough people wanted to stay on board to continue the mission? That there were people who understood its significance? That Young was one of those people? 

Didn't he have anything else to say about Telford? To ask about the other Rush? 

"So, was it him?" asked Rush, surprising himself with the question. He had been curious about it, certainly, but he hadn't really had an opportunity to bring up the topic with Young. Now, something in him just felt like poking the other man until he gave something away. Or until he snapped and poked back. 

"Was who him?" 

"Was it Telford who ratted you out, when Carwell died?" clarified Rush rather bluntly. 

Young tensed. Hit. 

"I didn't ask." Young's voice dropped an octave at least, if that was even possible. 

"Why? Don't you want to know?" 

"What good would that be? What's done is done. If it was him, he was brainwashed, we know that now." 

Rush smiled bitterly at that. The feeling of justice not being delivered felt like a betrayal. What the hell did he care if Colonel Telford got away with it? Logically, the man had the perfect excuse after all. Even if the whole brainwashing thing sounded a bit too fishy for his taste. 

"It's interesting, isn't it? It's like the universe somehow took care of the... anomalies." 

Rush turned back to Young at that. He was sitting there with a rather closed off expression, staring into his booze. 

"Anomalies?" Rush asked. 

"You and Telford. The only people we know for sure who had alternate versions in different timelines. And now there's only one of you. Again." 

Yes, it was bloody interesting. Rush tensed again. He was pretty sure the next question was going to be about the other Rush, and about him finding the guy. 

Of course, he was wrong again. 

"Brody tells me the ship is pretty much back to normal," continued Young. "He said he might even be able to tweak the shields a bit, add some extra parts that would stabilize their strength. You know, that research you had done with Eli back in the other galaxy? It looks like it finally paid off." Young said with forced enthusiasm. 

"About time," Rush grumbled back. He couldn't read Young's mood. He seemed calm at first, and he poked back when Rush winded him up with his comments but otherwise seemed pretty unaffected by the recent events. Rush didn't know what to make of it. He needed more data. He had to poke some more. 

"So, am I to expect any more pointless attempts to dial Earth despite my explicit warnings?" 

Young's arm stopped halfway towards his lips as he stared at him, then lowered the cup back to the table. "Everyone else had approved the project, except you. We had to try. You can't exactly blame me for not believing you. Not about this."

He felt the tightness returning. He ignored it. "I promised you that I would tell you everything." 

"Yes, you did, but I couldn't be sure this promise extended to going back to Earth too," said Young quietly. "I do _want_ to trust you. I'm just not yet sure that I _can_. Not about this anyway." 

"Well. That's rather blunt." 

"It's the truth. Look. We tried, it didn't work. Now at least everyone knows that this is a dead end. It's not like we have that many possibilities to choose from, in fact, by our current knowledge the only way to get back to Earth is through an Icarus-type planet. Right?" 

"Yes."

"So you can sleep soundly for a long while then. No one's going to force you to leave." 

Rush froze. 

Well, what the hell did he expect? That Young would understand? That he would see through _this_ facade as well? That he would reassure Rush that he was not responsible for what happened to the other Destiny's crew? Right. It was not like he believed Rush to be a cold hearted bastard. A pragmatic, selfish, cold hearted bastard. 

_'That was what you wanted anyway, right?'_ So why the hell was the tightness back in his chest, more suffocating than ever? 

He drank the last sip of the booze and slammed the cup back on the table. "I've got some work to do," he said darkly as he stood up and stalked out of the room. Young didn't try to stop him. 

He was not running away. He just decided that he didn't have time for pointless conversations. 

What the hell was wrong with him? He didn't need Young's good opinion, of all people. He never cared what anyone thought of him, in fact, he had actively gone out of his way to make people believe he was much more of a jerk than he actually was. That was the best way to make them leave him alone. And it worked perfectly. That was what he wanted. Peace. He didn't have time for anything else, apart from his work. That was his life now. 

And yet, the tightness didn't leave his chest when he did a routine system check from the CI room. Nor during his shower. It still hadn't eased up when he laid down on his bed, staring at the blurry light of million stars through his window.

He wished he had Gloria's picture with him.

 


End file.
